[pb_glossary id=\"595\"]Approximate reading time:[\/pb_glossary] 7 minutes<\/p>\r\n
Dissociative disorders<\/span><\/strong> are characterised by an individual becoming split off, or dissociated, from her core sense of self. Memory and identity become disturbed; these disturbances have a psychological rather than physical cause. Dissociative disorders listed in the DSM-5 include dissociative amnesia, depersonalisation\/derealisation disorder, and dissociative identity disorder.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Amnesia<\/strong> refers to the partial or total forgetting of some experience or event. An individual with\u00a0dissociative amnesia<\/span>\u00a0is unable to recall important personal information, usually following an extremely stressful or traumatic experience such as combat, natural disasters, or being the victim of violence. The memory impairments are not caused by ordinary forgetting. Some individuals with dissociative amnesia will also experience\u00a0dissociative fugue<\/span>\u00a0(from the word \u201cto flee\u201d in French), whereby they suddenly wander away from their home, experience confusion about their identity, and sometimes even adopt a new identity (Carde\u00f1a & Gleaves, 2006). Most fugue episodes last only a few hours or days, but some can last longer. One study of residents in communities in upstate New York reported that about 1.8% experienced dissociative amnesia in the previous year (Johnson, Cohen, Kasen, & Brook, 2006).<\/p>\r\n Some have questioned the validity of dissociative amnesia (Pope, Hudson, Bodkin, & Oliva, 1998); it has even been characterised as a \u201cpiece of psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support\u201d (McNally, 2003, p. 275). Notably, scientific publications regarding dissociative amnesia rose during the 1980s and reached a peak in the mid-1990s, followed by an equally sharp decline by 2003; in fact, only 13 cases of individuals with dissociative amnesia worldwide could be found in the literature that same year (Pope, Barry, Bodkin, & Hudson, 2006). Further, no description of individuals showing dissociative amnesia following a trauma exists in any fictional or nonfictional work prior to 1800 (Pope, Poliakoff, Parker, Boynes, & Hudson, 2006). However, a study of 82 individuals who enrolled for treatment at a psychiatric outpatient hospital found that nearly 10% met the criteria for dissociative amnesia, perhaps suggesting that the condition is underdiagnosed, especially in psychiatric populations (Foote, Smolin, Kaplan, Legatt, & Lipschitz, 2006).<\/p>\r\n\r\n Depersonalisation\/derealisation disorder<\/span><\/strong> is characterised by recurring episodes of depersonalisation, derealisation, or both. Depersonalisation<\/strong> is defined as feelings of \u201cunreality or detachment from, or unfamiliarity with, one\u2019s whole self or from aspects of the self\u201d (APA, 2013, p. 302). Individuals who experience\u00a0depersonalisation<\/span>\u00a0might believe their thoughts and feelings are not their own; they may feel robotic as though they lack control over their movements and speech; they may experience a distorted sense of time and, in extreme cases, they may sense an \u201cout-of-body\u201d experience in which they see themselves from the vantage point of another person.<\/p>\r\nDerealisation<\/span><\/strong> is conceptualised as a sense of \u201cunreality or detachment from, or unfamiliarity with, the world, be it individuals, inanimate objects, or all surroundings\u201d (APA, 2013, p. 303). A person who experiences derealisation might feel as though he is in a fog or a dream, or that the surrounding world is somehow artificial and unreal. Individuals with depersonalisation\/derealisation disorder often have difficulty describing their symptoms and may think they are going crazy (APA, 2013).\r\n\r\n By far, the most well-known dissociative disorder is\u00a0dissociative identity disorder<\/span>\u00a0(formerly called multiple personality disorder). People with dissociative identity disorder<\/strong> exhibit two or more separate personalities or identities, each well-defined and distinct from one another. They also experience memory gaps for the time during which another identity is in charge (e.g., one might find unfamiliar items in her shopping bags or among her possessions), and in some cases may report hearing voices, such as a child\u2019s voice or the sound of somebody crying (APA, 2013). The study of upstate New York residents mentioned above (Johnson et al., 2006) reported that 1.5% of their sample experienced symptoms consistent with dissociative identity disorder in the previous year.<\/p>\r\n Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is highly controversial. Some believe that people fake symptoms to avoid the consequences of illegal actions (e.g., \u201cI am not responsible for shoplifting because it was my other personality\u201d). In fact, it has been demonstrated that people are generally skilled at adopting the role of a person with different personalities when they believe it might be advantageous to do so.<\/p>\r\n A second reason DID is controversial is that rates of the disorder suddenly skyrocketed in the 1980s. More cases of DID were identified during the five years prior to 1986 than in the preceding two centuries (Putnam, Guroff, Silberman, Barban, & Post, 1986). Although this increase may be due to the development of more sophisticated diagnostic techniques, it is also possible that the popularisation of DID \u2014 helped in part by Sybil<\/em>, a popular 1970s book (and later film) about a woman with 16 different personalities \u2014 may have prompted clinicians to over-diagnose the disorder (Piper & Merskey, 2004). The recent suggestion that the story of Sybil was largely fabricated and the idea for the book might have been exaggerated (Nathan, 2011) casts further scrutiny on the existence of multiple personalities or identities.<\/p>\r\n Despite its controversial nature, DID is clearly a legitimate and serious disorder, and although some people may fake symptoms, others suffer their entire lives with it. People with this disorder tend to report a history of severe childhood trauma, some cases having been corroborated through medical or legal records (Carde\u00f1a & Gleaves, 2006). Research by Ross et al. (1990) suggests that in one study about 95% of people with DID were physically and\/or sexually abused as children. There is strong evidence that traumatic experiences can cause people to experience states of dissociation, suggesting that dissociative states \u2014 including the adoption of multiple personalities \u2014 may serve as an important psychological coping mechanism for threat and danger (Dalenberg et al., 2012).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/section>","rendered":"Psychogenic\/Dissociative Amnesia<\/h1>\r\n
Depersonalisation\/Derealisation Disorder<\/h1>\r\n
Dissociative Identity Disorder<\/h1>\r\n