Dissociative and
Somatoform Disorders
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
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
– Herschell Walker 1 2
Dissociative Amnesia
• characterized by a loss
or blocking out of
critical personal
information
Dissociative Amnesia
• Does NOT result from other medical trauma
(e.g. a blow to the head).
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
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.
Somatoform Disorders
Confusion 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
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.
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