1. Dissociative Disorders
Psychology
Mrs. Deming

2. Dissociation
Separation of certain personality components or mental processes from conscious thought
Significant breakdown in a person’s normal conscious experience

3. What Happens? Lose memory of a particular event Forget your identity
Occurs when people are faced with urges of experiences that are stressful

4. Dissociative Amnesia Sudden loss of memory
Less common: forget all prior experiences
May be an attempt to escape from problems by blotting them out completely
Time frame: a few hours to years
Returns as fast as it left—usually doesn’t reoccur
Psychological in origin
Numbers up during wartime and natural disasters

5. Dissociative Fugue Forget personal information and past events
Sudden relocation—new identity
Follows a traumatic/stressful event
“It was the strangest thing, and it cost me my marriage. One day I just woke up in a bed about 40 miles from my town. I could not remember going there, or how I got there. I just freaked out and left. I was walking, trying to figure out where I was, and who I was, when the police stopped me. They took me to the hospital where the doctors found my ID and called my husband. It was many days before everything in my head was clear again, but I still can't totally remember going to Henson or what I was doing there. My husband does not believe me, and thinks I was having an affair. We are in the process of getting divorced" -- O.P.

6. Dissociative Identity Disorder
2 or more distinct personalities, each own way of thinking or behaving
Personalities take control at different times
People diagnosed with this disorder usually suffered physical, psychological or sexual abuse during childhood

7. 3 Faces of Eve Chris Costner Sizemore (Eve)—22 personalities in all
Presumed causes—severe abuse in childhood

8. Depersonalization Disorder
Feelings of detachment to one’s mental processes or body
After depression and anxiety this is the most common complaint among psychiatric patients