Dissociation Flashcards
Dissciation
- segregation of any group of mental processes from the rest of someone’s psychological activity
- Unconscious defense mechanism
- Often associated with psychological trauma
- May be transient or chronic, sudden or gradual
5 core symptoms of dissociative disorders
Amnesia
Depersonalization
Derealization
Identity Confusion
Identity Alteration
Amnesia
Recurrent gaps or defects in memory
Depersonalization
Detachment or disconnection from ones self
a stranger in my body
derealization
disconnection from one’s surroundings
everything feels unreal
Identity confusion
inner struggle about one’s sense of self/identity
I don’t know which of me is the real me
Identity Alteration
Sense of acting like a different person some of time
-may use different names
-learned skill without recollection of learning the ability
-uncontrolled mood/behavior changes
Dissociative amnesia
can’t recall personal information
autobiographical memory
reversible.
Dissociative Fuge
Sudden unexpected travel or wandering around in a dissociative state
-a subtype of dissociative amnesia
Epidemiology of dissociative amnesia
7% lifetime
2% in the last 12 months
no gender pref
age most often seen in late adolescence
-comorbid: MDD MC, bipolar, substance abuse, substance abuse, other anxiety disorders
-etiology from intolerable emotions or a traumatic experience
Dissociative Amnesia DSM
Inability to recall autobiography information usually a tramatic or stressful nature, different from normal forgetting
it can be around a event like specifically cant recall the event or generalized for identity and life history
-can be accompanied by dissociative fuge
-it is not due to an organic brain condition
Questions on dissociative amnesia
Asking about gaps in memory, have you traveled somewhere without recollection, do you have items in your posession that you don’t remember aquiring
Localized amnesia
inability to recall events related to a circumscribed period of time
continuous amnesia
failture to recall successive events as they occur
generalized amnesia
failure to recall one’s entire life
generalized amnesia
failture to recall one’s entire life
Selective Amnesia
Ability to remember some but not all of the events occuring during a circumscribed period of time
Systematized amnesia
Failure to remember a category of information, such as all memories relating to one’s family or particular person
Tx dissociative amnesia
- psychotherapy that is phase oriented so that you can overcome it
- cognitive therapy: address cognitive distortions based on trauma
- hypnosis - facilitate recall
- group therapy- for trauma related
- meds don’t treat but help support
- BZDs, barb, amphetamines to help recall during interviews
Phase-Oriented Treatment
Broken into 3 stages:
- stabilization
- traumatic memories
- fusion, integration
Depersonalization
Persistent or recurring feeling of detachment or estrangement from one’s self
- moving through the motions or on autopilot
Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder
DDD
Prevalence
- transient depersonalization/dereal in the last 12 mo is up to 20%
- correllated in pts with a hx of seizures or migraines, psychedeilc drugs, medications, head injury
- lifetime DDD is 1-3%
- equally common in men and women
- risk factors - acute or chronic trauma, drugs, psychiatric disorders
- 1/3 to 1/2 with DDD
- Comorbid - depression, anxiety, OCD, avoidant, or borderline personality