Dissociative Amnesia Case Study

Treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder is possible. The current treatment of PTSD encompasses several types of psychotherapy combined with a medication regimen. Cognitive therapy is one type of therapy used to combat PTSD. The goal of cognitive therapy is to allow the patient to slowly experience feelings, thoughts, and events associated with the trauma in a controlled setting. This allows the PTSD sufferer, to categorize the traumatic feelings associated with the event and assign a more positive meaning to them. Thus providing a coping mechanism. Another school of thought places the therapeutic focus on gradually exposing the PTSD sufferer to elements of the trauma. The goal is to desensitize the patient to the traumatic event. This allows the patient to resume a normal life. One other form of therapy used in treatment of PTSD is EMDR. EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a form of exposure therapy that places the emphasis on guided eye movements. The theory is that the movements help retrain how the brain reacts to memories of the traumatic event. Success has

The psychological trauma experienced by Larry and Karen (n.d.) in the sudden, unexpected death of their one-year-old son is enough to threaten their sense of security, make them feel vulnerable to dangers in life and can cause them to lose all sense of direction in their life. Karen experienced a dissociative disorder known as dissociative amnesia (APA, 1994). The sudden onset of her son’s death was an extremely traumatic event that caused her to experience a temporary amnesia of the events of the previous week including the death of her son. The extent of the emotional trauma results in temporary impairment but it can be

In chapter 15 of Exploring Psychology, the author discuss the basics of psychological disorders. Within this assignment, the psychological disorder of my choosing is Dissociative Identity Disorder. The commonality of the disorder is rare. Although we’ve disassociated ourselves in some form or the other with our ability to daydream, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is more severe and is usually linked to trauma. Formerly the disorder was known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Individuals who suffer from this disorder usually have more than one aspect of themselves or personalities, whom he or she is completely unaware of. Sufferers of the disorder have to deal with a variety of symptoms such as memory loss, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, black-outs, impulsiveness, and perception of being detached from the self. The severity of the trauma is usually extreme, repetitive, and long-term. The individual may have an extensive history of physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse.

EMDR therapy, EMDR uses an eight-phase approach, referring to the past, present, and future aspects of the traumatic experience, and dysfunctional stress stored memories. The first Phase calls History and Treatment Planning. In this phase the therapist listens the patient's history and develops a treatment plan. In Phase II, the preparation, the therapist teaches the patient how to calm down him/herself with the help of relaxation techniques. The phase III is Assessment in which the therapist asks the patient to visualize the image of the disturbing event, then asks him/her to develop a positive cognition associating with that image. In Phase IV, Desensitization, the patient  focuses on the disturbing memories during short sessions of 15-30 seconds. At the same time, he/she also focuses on the alternative stimulation such as directed eye movements, slapping hands, or voices. This process repeats  many times until the patient's reaction to the target memory becomes less distressed. In Phase V, Installation, the therapist again with the use of bilateral stimulation asks the patient to remember the event about which the positive cognition is developed in the phase III, and makes sure that

According to Sharf, (2008) the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) was designed to treat posttraumatic stress disorder. EMDR requires that the clients visualize an upsetting memory and accompanying physical sensations. The clients repeat negative self-statements that they associate with the scene. The procedure is repeated again and again until the client’s anxiety is reduced. EMDR focuses on desensitizing strong emotional reasons in clients and help them to reframe their belief systems to accommodate new emotional states (Sharf, 2008).

Dissociative disorder is a disorder in which individuals feel detached from themselves or their surroundings and reality, experience and identity may disintegrate. Dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is characterized as a disorder in which up to 100 personalities or fragments of personalities coexist within one body and mind (Barlow). The client was diagnosed and given an assessment with the goal of determining the factors. In many cases, only a few characteristics are distinct, because the identities are only partially independent. DSM-5 criteria for DID include amnesia, as in dissociative amnesia. Dissociative amnesia occurs when a person blocks out certain information, usually associated with a stressful or traumatic event, leaving him or her unable to remember important personal information. With this disorder, the degree of memory loss goes beyond normal forgetfulness and includes gaps in memory for long periods of time or of memories involving the traumatic event. In DID, however, identity has also fragmented. How many personalities live inside one body is relatively unimportant, whether there are 3, 4, or even 100 of them. Through a process of discovery, the client's history finally revealed that the impotence was actually a result of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) caused by a past experience. People with PTSD fear re-experiencing a traumatic event and sometimes are unable to remember certain aspects (Barlow 138). However, through psychoanalytic therapy, this client illustrates a successful

A dissociative amnesia may be present when a person is unable to remember important personal information, which is usually associated with a traumatic event in his/her life. The loss of memory creates gaps in this individual's personal history.

About three months ago, during the summer, I was living a very unhealthy lifetsyle. For about a week I felt like I wasn't remembering things that should have been easily known. During normal daily activites such as work, I would tend to forget things that would have been easy to remember any other day. I've been working as a deilvry driver at a pizzeria now for close to 2 years, and I know the neighborhood extremly well. However, during this time, I was starting to forget items at the pizzeria such as sodas or where streets were, that I knew extremly well. It is for these reasons that I feel like I was experiecing symptoms of disaciative amnesia

Treatments to help cope with this disorder include psychotherapy. Also labeled as “talk therapy”, psychotherapy allows the patient to verbalize their issues with a qualified counselor or therapist. Being able to express the trauma also allows the individual to cope, heal, and get past the events that haunt them. There are no medications for the treatment of dissociative disorder but a doctor may prescribe anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety, or antidepressants to help cope while under counseling.

Occupational therapy might help is because it could help learn new information in where the memory had disappeared from. Occupational therapy could also allow you to get better memory because of the games which could help memorizing new things and understanding of extended conversation. Technology can also help people with amnesia because on it you could write thing you had to do day by day and can help the patient with amnesia remember your reminders for example, taking medications. As of right now there is not a medication for most of the amnesia's considering that there are many amnesia's.But the person can be always be supported for example,the friend or family can talk to him about how he feels getting the person what he needs also staying with him. If the person with amnesia has permanent for maybe a little less severe some organizations might help him out. There are some prevention's of amnesia, avoid alcohol because of the affects of it on the memory part of your brain, some amnesia's happen because of concussions and concussions happen from hitting your head on the ground so you should wear helmets when biking or playing a sport for example, football or hockey.Finally if a person has symptoms of a stroke. These prevention's will help the person with amnesia and help them lead a normal

Dissociative amnesia is a dissociative disorder where one’s consciousness has been damaged by a traumatic event. A person with dissociative amnesia tends to block out information from a traumatic event. They’re unable to remember the event, even though the memory is still in the brain. Often times, the traumatic event can be remembered on its own or the memory of the event can be triggered from similar events the person had faced

However, EMDR focuses less on the traumatic event itself and more on the disturbing emotions that arise as a result of the event. During EMDR, the client simultaneously focuses on emotionally disturbing memories or feelings and therapist lead bilateral external stimuli. Commonly used bilateral stimulation include left-right eye movements, alternating sounds using headphones, and alternating tactile simulation using a handheld device that vibrates or taps on the back of patient’s hands. During this process of dual attention, Harvard researchers have connected the bilateral stimulation to the biological mechanisms involved in REM sleep (Schubert, Lee & Drummond, 2011). This sets up an adaptive learning state that allows the brain to appropriately digest and store experiences that are causing problems, transforming the events at an emotional level (Coleman, 1999). This approach to processing is unique to this therapy, and shifts away from the common practice of merely talking about the trauma as a means of processing. During this learning state, the brain is also able to form new associations between the traumatic memory and a new more adaptive memory in a safe environment. This allows the patient to store useful information from the therapeutic

Eye movement desensitization regulation (EMDR) is a treatment that was developed in order to treat individuals who have gone through a traumatic experience. The goal of this treatment is to resolve dysfunctional traumatic memories by adequately accessing and processing them (Solomon, Solomon, & Heide, 2009). By completing this treatment the traumatic memories would no longer cause major distress to the individual and their negative beliefs about himself/herself would be reformulated (Shapiro, 2009). This treatment is done during individual therapy with a therapist and the client. The therapist completes this treatment by using a bilateral stimulation that will be explained further in this paper (Solomon & Shapiro, 2008).

The one case to put Dissociative Identity Disorder on the map and to actually get this disorder recognized was Sybil Isabel Dorsett’s (Sargent 2007). Sybil was put under severe trauma from her mother when she was a little girl. The way she counteracted the trauma was by making sixteen different personalities (Sargent 2007). She made more than anyone has ever recorded before. Sybil’s real name was actually Shirley Ardell Mason (Neary 2010). There was a book and a movie written about the case. Shirley was treated by a female psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Connie Wilbur (Neary 2010). Wilbur treated Shirley until her death in 1998 (Neary 2010). With Shirley Mason in therapy for Dissociative Identity Disorder, again back then it was named Multiple Personality Disorder, she tried to convince Dr. Wilbur that she was faking the sets of personalities and that she was in perfect health by writing her a letter:

Dissociative identity disorder is a type of dissociative disorder. A dissociative disorder can be explained as an individual becoming dissociative with his or her sense of self. These disorders disturb both memory and identity and usually have a psychological cause. Dissociative identity disorder is a disorder in which two or more identities or personality states are present in one individual. These identities alternatively take control of the individual. This causes frequent gaps in memory, which are believed to be caused by the other personality. When one personality takes control, the other one does not remember anything that took place. There has been continuing research about what causes the disorder. It is believed that the disorder is caused by intense physical or sexual trauma (Dissociative Disorders). The disorder was once called multiple personality disorder until 1994. This changed to reflect a better understanding of the