Dissociative Disorders Flashcards
It is popularly known as hypochondriasis but is now called more accurately as ___ in the textbook edition of DSM-V.
Illness anxiety disorder
These disorders have an excessive or maladaptive response to physical symptoms or to associated health concerns.
Somatic symptom disorders
These disorders have an excessive or maladaptive response to physical symptoms or to associated health concerns. They were once categorized under “hysterical neurosis”. Hysterical means physical symptoms with no known organic cause, while neurosis implies unconscious conflicts. However, due to the prejudicial and stigmatizing term “hysterical”, it is no longer used.
Somatic symptom disorders (SSD)
Somatic symptom disorder was once called ___ for many years.
Briquet’s syndrome
T or F: The important factor in SSD is not whether the physical symptom has a medical cause or not, but rather that psychological or behavioral factors, particularly anxiety, and distress, are compounding the severity and impairment associated with the physical symptoms.
T
In this type of dissociative experience, you temporarily lose the sense of your own reality, as if you were in a dream and you were watching yourself. You feel likeyour thoughts and feelings are not your own.
Depersonalization
What makes somatic symptom disorder different from an illness anxiety disorder?
There are physical symptoms in somatic symptom disorder which can be severe, whereas physical symptoms are either not experienced at the present time or are very mild or minor in illness anxiety disorder.
People with this disorder may feel like their symptoms constitute their identity.
Illness anxiety disorder
T or F: In illness anxiety disorder, the concern is primarily with the idea of being sick instead of the physical symptoms themselves.
T
In patients with somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder, reassurance from physicians helps their anxiety and distress.
F, reassurance from physicians does not seem to help. They may perceive medical care as unhelpful or see their physician as not taking them seriously. Those who do go for medical attention may experience heightened levels of anxiety
T or F: In somatic symptom disorder, evidence shows that it runs in families and that there is a modest genetic contribution.
T
This cognitive behavioral treatment involves the clinician going over the source and origins of their symptoms in detail, which has been proven to be effective in treating health anxiety and somatic symptom disorder.
Explanatory therapy
This disorder has something to do with physical malfunctioning (e.g. paralysis, blindness, difficulty speaking such as aphonia) without any physical or organic pathology to account for the malfunction.
Conversion disorder
Acute conversion disorder is diagnosed if it is less than 6 months, whereas persistent conversion disorder is diagnosed if ___.
More than 6 months
T or F: Conversion disorder does not include excessive checking or thinking of symptoms, which can cause anxiety and distress in the individual. It is similar to somatic symptom disorder in that both have physical or organic symptoms.
T
People with this disorder act as if they have an illness by deliberately producing, feigning, and exaggerating symptoms.
Factitious disorder
What do you call a seizure that has a psychological origin, which is one of the symptoms that can be observed in individuals with a conversion disorder?
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures
T or F: Factitious disorder (previously known as Munchausen syndrome) involves intentionally inducing oneself into sickness for financial or personal gain (external gains)
F, people with factitious disorders seek to take the sick role and receive interpersonal benefits or internal incentives
In this type of dissociative experience, you temporarily lose the sense of your own reality, as if you were in a dream and you were watching yourself. You feel like your thoughts and feelings are not your own.
Depersonalization
In this type of dissociative experience, your sense of the reality of the external world is lost. Things may seem to change shape or size; people may seem dead or mechanical.
Derealization
In depersonalization-derealization disorder, the reality is no longer intact.
F. It is people with schizophrenia whose reality is no longer intact
A subtype of dissociative amnesia wherein memory loss revolves around a specific incident or an unexpected trip. During these trips, a person may assume a new identity.
Dissociative fugue
In this type of amnesia, there is a failure to recall specific events, usually traumatic.
Localized or selective amnesia
In this type of amnesia, there is a failure to recall specific events, usually traumatic.
Selective or localized amnesia
T or F: While in a fugue state, you may not just experience memory loss but also the disintegration of identity or the complete adoption of a new one.
T
Dissociative disorders have cultural implications. When the state is undesirable and considered pathological by members of the culture, particularly if the trance involves a perception of being possessed by an evil spirit or another person, what would be the diagnosis?
Dissociative trance or other specified dissociative disorder
T or F: In many cases of dissociative identity disorder (DID), only a few characteristics are distinct, because the identities are partially independent.
T, this was the reason why the name was changed from multiple personality disorder
What are the average number of alters in people with DID?
15
In people with DID, what alter usually asks for treatment?
It is usually the “host” identity that seeks treatment, which commonly develops at a later time. Seldom does the original personality of the person seek one.
T or F: Cross-gendered alters are not common in people with DID.
F, they are common. For example, a small agile woman might have a strong powerful male alter who serves as her protector
T or F: The possibility of identity fragments and early trauma, which comprises DID, can be socially reinforced by a therapist.
T, therapists can inadvertently suggest the existence of alters to suggestible individuals
T or F: Malingerers are more likely to attempt to hide their symptoms, whereas patients with DID are usually eager to demonstrate their symptoms and do so in a fluid fashion.
F, those with DID are more likely to attempt to hide their symptoms, which sets them apart from malingerers
What’s the common cause of DID?
Childhood trauma, which can include abuse
