Dissociative Disorders: A Diagnostic Analysis

An out-of-body experience is explained by few as a sense of being detached from one’s body, and if associated with other factors like a sense that the world is not real, far away, or even foggy. This with the combination of failure to recall significant personal information, or the content of a meaningful conversation forgotten from one second to the next are signs of a psychological disorder known as Dissociative Disorder. Considered as a rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosity, Dissociative Disorders will be the psychological disorder that will be discussed in this paper.

Psychotic Disorders are a group of mental illnesses that drastically affect the mind. Psychotic Disorders are the cause of abnormal thinking and perceptions. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), people with severe psychotic disorders lose touch with reality. Although Psychotic Disorders sound harsh and irreversible, they can be treated with therapy and medication. In my research, I focused on a particular Psychotic Disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder. While researching Dissociative Identity Disorder, I mainly focused on the historical analysis, how it is represented in the media and literature, and first-hand reports of individuals living with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

According to the DSM-IV-TR, the person must meet certain criteria in order to be diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. This includes two or more distinct identities or personality states being present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self, at least two of these identities or personality states recurrently taking control of the person’s behavior, the person having an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness, and the disturbance not being due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).

American Psychiatric Association (APA). 1994. Somatoform Dissociative Disorder, Dissociative Amnesia. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Ed. Retrieved from http://behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/disamnesia.htm

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.

Dissociative disorders are one of the most controversial disorders that exist. It is often argued that the disorder does not actually exist and that people are over-diagnosed. Dissociative disorders is a type of psychological disorder that involve a sudden loss of memory of change in identity due to the dissociation (separation) of the individual’s conscious awareness from previous memories and thoughts. A common example of a dissociation is when an individual daydreams and becomes unaware of the passage of time. However, this is just a very mild case of dissociation and is normal to experience. The NAMI (National Alliance on Medical Health) declares that approximately half of Americans have experienced a dissociative episode in their life but only two percent of those cases are severe enough to meet the full criteria of chronic episodes. This disorder is more often found in women rather than men.

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 disorder is the breakdown of one's perception of his/her surroundings, memory, identity, or consciousness.

Types of Dissociative Identity Sicknesses. Dissociation, this was the earliest to explain, example when the child is day dreaming, having an imaginary friend. The person will still need treatment to receive healing. The most extreme case of (DID) will happen during the treatment of child unfair treatment and is the moat treated. (Costello, 2015) The second form of (DID) Dissociative Identity problem, not otherwise specified, (Ross C. A., 1997) it come from the neglect pathway. (Ross C. A., 1997) In less violent and cruel cases the child may find that one parent cannot provide the attachments that's needed. (Iberra-Yruegas & Perales-Blum, 2016) All patients seemed to have the same beginning that mother was noted to be a person who can't stop

National Alliance on Mental Illness says that there are many dissociative disorders some are dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalization disorder and dissociative identity disorder that was called multiple personality disorder (NAMI, 2016). This paper will look at dissociative identity disorder and what brain abnormalities occur. According to Mayo Clinic, dissociative identity disorder (DID) is written off as the swapping of alternate identities in one person. The person may feel like there are one or more other people living inside them or talking to them. They may have their own names and different personality accompanied by different voices and even gender. People with DID usually have dissociative fugue and amnesia as

According to the Mayo Clinic (Dissociation Disorders) or multiple personality disorders are categorized as instabilities or disconnection of reality, self-awareness, and character of an individual. According to the Mayo Clinic indicators of dissociation disorders could vary and depends on the type of disorders. Some of these symptoms that could identify the disorder are partial amnesia, lack of emotions, disconnection with reality, issues in maintaining relationships, inability to deal with life stressors factors or emotions, and sense of out of body experiences. Also, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (Dissociation Disorders) there are three main dissociation disorders recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. These disorders are classified as dissociation amnesia, depersonalization/deserialization, and dissociation identity disorder. The National

Dissociative disorder is an extreme case of Dissociation, which causes a person to disconnect with their own thoughts. During the review of the video, Dissociative disorder leads me to think why one would suffer from this illness, my findings were formed by an individual having a traumatic event in their lives, such as a severe sexual, emotional, or physical abuse in their early cycle of life.

a.Psychotherapy is the most common treatment for dissociative disorders. Talking with a therapist can help a person understand the causes of the condition, and

Imagine waking up in a new house, town, city, even state and not knowing how you got there. Now add onto that thought of forgetting almost a year of your life because someone else, or something, has taken over your body. That is just a look into dissociative disorders in general. Dissociative Disorders are ‘extreme distortions in perception and memory” (Terwilliger 2013). Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is often the most misunderstood dissociative disorder of them all. It has always been somewhat of a mystery. Seeing videos of the disorder can really give you an insight on what happens with the person who suffer from it. Almost everyone in the

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