Dissociative and Somatoform Disorders

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Dissociative and Somatoform Disorders
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Dissociative Disorders

• Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes
  separated (dissociated) from previous memories,
  thoughts and feelings.
• May have multiple personalities, amnesia, or
  become someone else
• Very popular subject for TV and movies
• But, very very rare and some argue their existence

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Dissociative Identity Disorder

• formally known as multiple personality disorder.

• a person exhibits two or more distinct and
  alternating personalities.
• Women tend to average 15 pers. and men about 8

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Dissociative Amnesia

• characterized by a loss or blocking out of
  critical personal information

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Dissociative Amnesia

• Does NOT result from other medical trauma (e.g. a
  blow to the head).

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Dissociative Fugue

• Characterized by reversible amnesia for personal
  identity
• Fugue comes from the word fugitive
• An individual in a fugue state is unaware of or
  confused about his identity, and in some cases
  will assume a new identity (although this is the
  exception).
• Can involve unplanned traveling or wandering

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Depersonalization Disorder

• Marked by a feeling of detachment or distance
  from one's own experience, body, or self.

• One can easily relate to feeling as they are in
  a dream, or being "spaced out."

A person's experience with depersonalization can
be so severe that he or she believes the external
world is unreal or distorted.
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Dissociative Amnesia - Types

• Localized amnesia
• an individual who has no memory of specific
  events that took place, usually traumatic.
• The loss of memory is localized with a specific
  window of time.
• For example, a survivor of a car wreck who has no
  memory of the experience until two days later is
  experiencing localized amnesia.
• Selective amnesia
• when a person can recall only small parts of
  events that took place in a defined period of
  time.
• For example, an abuse victim may recall only some
  parts of the series of events around the abuse.
• Generalized amnesia
• when a person's amnesia encompasses an entire
  life.
• Systematized amnesia
• characterized by a loss of memory for a specific
  category of information.
• A person with this disorder might, for example,
  be missing all memories about one specific family
  member.

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Causes of Dissociative Disorders

• An attempt to escape a traumatic experience
• Protecting the self
• Traumatic event in childhood
• Highly imaginative children
• Make-believe games become part of real life
• Could just be attention seeking personalities

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Somatoform DisordersConfusion of Mind Body

• Disorders involving physical symptoms or
  complaints with no real physical cause or
  explanation
• Two types
• Conversion disorder
• May suffer from a loss of movement in a limb or
  feeling in a hand or arm or loss of vision
• Hypochondriasis
• You believe something is very wrong with your
  health