Depersonalization is defined as feelings of “unreality or detachment from, or unfamiliarity with, one’s whole self or from aspects of the self” (APA, 2013, p. However, a study of 82 individuals who enrolled for treatment at a psychiatric outpatient hospital found that nearly 10% met the criteria for dissociative amnesia, perhaps suggesting that the condition is underdiagnosed, especially in psychiatric populations (Foote, Smolin, Kaplan, Legatt, & Lipschitz, 2006).ĭepersonalization/derealization disorder is characterized by recurring episodes of depersonalization, derealization, or both. Further, no description of individuals showing dissociative amnesia following a trauma exists in any fictional or nonfictional work prior to 1800 (Pope, Poliakoff, Parker, Boynes, & Hudson, 2006). Notably, scientific publications regarding dissociative amnesia rose during the 1980s and reached a peak in the mid-1990s, followed by an equally sharp decline by 2003 in fact, only 13 cases of individuals with dissociative amnesia worldwide could be found in the literature that same year (Pope, Barry, Bodkin, & Hudson, 2006). Some have questioned the validity of dissociative amnesia (Pope, Hudson, Bodkin, & Oliva, 1998) it has even been characterized as a “piece of psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support” (McNally, 2003, p. Recovery is usually sudden and often complete, although the fugue state may end gradually in some individuals. Other factors that could predispose someone to dissociative reactions include neuropsychological cognitive dysfunctions and genetic factors. Dissociative fugue has also been noted to be associated with a previous history of child abuse. The onset is often in adolescence or early adulthood and onset is usually sudden, and often related to traumatic or stressful life events. People with dissociative fugue may travel far distances during the fugue, as far as several thousand miles, and could remain in the fugue state for a couple of days, several weeks or even months. Once they have returned to their pre-dissociative states, they do not remember any events that occurred during the fugue. Dissociative fugue is a rare disorder and data available indicate a prevalence of 0.2% in the general population. People with dissociative fugue temporarily lose their sense of personal identity and impulsively wander away from their homes or places of work. Most fugue episodes last only a few hours or days, but some can last longer.įigure 2. Some individuals with dissociative amnesia will also experience dissociative fugue (from the word “to flee” in French), whereby they suddenly wander away from their home, experience confusion about their identity, and sometimes even adopt a new identity (Cardeña & Gleaves, 2006). One study of residents in communities in upstate New York reported that about 1.8% experienced dissociative amnesia in the previous year (Johnson, Cohen, Kasen, & Brook, 2006). The memory impairments are not caused by ordinary forgetting. An individual with dissociative amnesia is unable to recall important personal information, usually following an extremely stressful or traumatic experience such as combat, natural disasters, or being the victim of violence. Dissociative AmnesiaĪmnesia refers to the partial or total forgetting of some experience or event. Dissociative disorders listed in the DSM-5 include dissociative amnesia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Memory and identity become disturbed these disturbances have a psychological rather than physical cause. The most well-known dissociative disorder is dissociative identity disorder, in which people exhibit more than one identity.ĭissociative disorders are characterized by an individual becoming split off, or dissociated, from their core sense of self.
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