Chapter 5: Dissociative & Somatoform Disorders Flashcards
What is dissociative identity disorder?
Disorder in which a person has two or more distinct or alternate personalities.
What is the most common precipitating event that leads to DID?
Physical and sexual abuse in childhood (90%)
What are the controversies surrounding DID?
Because it is considered so rare, the existence of this disorder is heavily debated. Many believe that it is not a disorder but instead a form of roleplaying.
What is dissociative amnesia?
A syndrome in which a person experiences memory losses in the absence of any organic cause; motor memories are typically retained but events and periods of life that are considered traumatic or that generated strong negative emotions are completed lost.
However, the memory loss is reversible.
What is malingering?
Faking illness to avoid or escape work or other duties.
What is depersonalization?
Feelings of unreality or detachment from one’s self or one’s body, as if they were a robot.
Also presented as observing oneself from the outside.
What is derealization?
Episodes in which a person senses that their surroundings have become strange or unreal (dreamlike); colors may seem washed out or bright, time may seem to slow down or speed up.
What is depersonalization/derealization disorder?
A disorder in which a person experiences frequent episodes or one prolonged episode of depersonalization or derealization. However, they remain able to distinguish reality from unreality.
What are psychodynamic views on dissociation?
Dissociative episodes involve the massive use of repression; the ego protects itself from anxiety by blotting out disturbing memories or by dissociating threatening impulses of a sexual or aggressive nature.
What are the learning/cognitive views on dissociation?
Not thinking about traumatic themes is negatively reinforced from anxiety or removal of guilt/shame. Also seen as a form of roleplaying via observational learning.
What are the main treatment options for dissociative disorders?
Psychoanalysis to uncover childhood trauma, CBT to uncover maladaptive thinking, and medication.
What is the controversy surrounding treatment of dissociation via memory retrieval?
Memories are subject to probing and false implantation; individual may be prompted by a therapist to recall something that never happened.
“False memory”
What are somatic symptom disorders?
Disorders in which people complain of physical problems with no organic cause.
What is conversion disorder?
Neurological symptom disorder characterized by symptoms or deficits that affect the ability to control voluntary movements (sensory dysfunction).
What are classic symptoms of conversion disorder?
Paralysis, epilepsy, coordination problems, sensory problems, anaesthesia.
