Dissociative Disorders

Mr. KochAP Psychology

Forest Lake High School

Dissociative Disorders

• Rare conditions that involve sudden & usually temporary disruptions in a person’s memory, consciousness, or identity

• Often appears to be connected to some severe trauma

Dissociative Amnesia(formerly Psychogenic Amnesia)

• A dissociative disorder marked by a sudden loss of memory– May forget all personal

identifying information • Not due to drug intoxication or

other medical cause

Dissociative Fugue

• Dissociative disorder involving sudden loss of memory and the assumption of a new identity in a new locale

Dissociative Fugue

Case Study:“John was a meek person who was dependent on his wife for companionship and emotional support. It came as a jolt when she announced that she was leaving him to live with his younger brother. John did not go to work the next day. In fact, nothing was heard from him for two weeks until he was arrested for public drunkenness and assault in a city more than three hundred miles from his home. During those two weeks, John lived under another name at a cheap hotel and worked selling tickets at a pornographic movie theater. When he was interviewed, John did not know his real name or his home address, could not explain how he had reached his present location, and could not remember much about the previous two weeks.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)(formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder)

• Dissociative disorder in which a person reports having more than one identity

• Each speaks, acts, writes differently• Each has own memories, wishes,

and (often conflicting) impulses

– Often appears as response to childhood trauma

Dissociative Identity DisorderCase study:

“Mary, a pleasant and introverted thirty-five year old social worker, was referred to a psychiatrist for hypnotic treatment of chronic pain. At an early interview she mentioned the odd fact that though she had no memory of using her car after coming home from work, she often found that it had been driven fifty to one hundred miles overnight. It turned out that she also had no memory of large parts of her childhood. Mary rapidly learned self-hypnosis for pain control, but during one hypnotic session, she suddenly began speaking in a hostile manner. She told the doctor her name was Marian, and that it was “she” who had been taking long evening drives. She also called Mary “pathetic” for “wasting time” trying to please other people. Eventually, six other identities emerged, some of whom told of having experienced parental abuse in childhood.” (Spitzer et al., 1994)

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder

• Minor “epidemic” for about a decade after 1970

• Increasing # of personalities

– Perhaps prompted by movies, books, and therapists seeking diagnosis

– Controversy over whether or not it exists