Exam 2: Dissociative Disorders

Question 1

Somatize

Answer 1

Tendency to experience and communicate physical symptoms in response to psychological distress

Question 2

Dissociation

Answer 2

Severe traumatic dissociation comes from major trauma

Individual may develop a disorder such as dissociative identity disorder

Question 3

Co-morbidities to dissociative disorders

Answer 3

PTSD, borderline personality disorder, childhood sexual abuse, ADD

Genetics: Dissociative identity disorder more common in first-degree relatives of individuals with this disorder

Psychosocial: Learned method for avoidance of stress

Cultural: Culturally bound disorders exist in which anxiety, trance-like states, running and fleeing with amnesia can occurA

Question 4

Alternate personality or sub-personality

Answer 4

Has its own pattern of perceiving, affect, cognition, behavior, and memories

Question 5

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Answer 5

Presents with a disruption of identity characterized by the presence of 2 or more distinct personality states and recurrent gaps in recall of personal information or events

Manifestations: Alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning

Recurrent gaps in recall of everyday events, important personal information, or traumatic events that are inconsistent with orginary forgetting

Question 6

Dissociative amnesia

Answer 6

Fugue experience

Inability to recall personal information often occurring after traumatic event

Sudden onset after a traumatic or stressful event

Generalized: Inability to recall entire lifetime
Localized: Inability to recall all events in certain periods
Selective: Some but not all events recalled

Question 7

Depersonalization

Answer 7

Persistent feeling of being detached from self of one’s mental processes

Question 8

Derealization

Answer 8

Sensation of being in a dream-like state in which the environment seems foggy or unreal

Client is not psychotic or out of contact with reality

Question 9

Dissociative disorders assessment

Answer 9

Rule out medical illness, substance use, and other psychiatric disorders

Determine suicide risk

Note signs of dissociative disorder:
Changes in behavior, voice, dress
Referring to self by another name or in third person
Partial memory or memory gaps
Disorientation to time, place, person
Presence of blackouts

Question 10

Dissociative fugue assessment finding

Answer 10

“I cannot recall why I’m living in this town”

Question 11

Treatment for dissociative disorders

Answer 11

Psychotherapy = primary treatment offered, most effective
Anti-depressants
Anti-anxiety medications