Conditions where a person experiences disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or perception of his surroundings are called Dissociative Disorders.
These disorders are identified by dissociation from the surroundings and disruption in a person’s general functioning. All the disorders of dissociative nature seem to originate from the trauma, which was felt by the person.
It is a type of coping mechanism of the individual, as the person basically dissociates from the experiences or situations, which are too disturbing to be integrated with oneself.
Depending upon the symptoms, dissociative disorders are of the following four types:
Dissociative amnesia where the person is unable to remember important vital information, or experiences, which are usually, associated with the traumatic event in his life. This loss of memory creates gaps in the individual’s personal history. This has a variety of subtypes like, amnesia, generalized amnesia and systemized amnesia. Though it is common in adults, it can also be found in children or adolescents.
Dissociative fugue is a kind of disorder where following a traumatic experience, the person unexpectedly wanders or travels off away form home or surroundings and goes off to a distant place or location and is unable to recall his past. Thus the person’s main identity is lost and sometimes even assumes a new identity. The person appears normal to the other people, but after the fugue experience, he does not remember what he did during the fugue state. It is diagnosed only when the individual is found and identified by his relatives. Dissociative fugue is commonly seen in adults.
Dissociative identity or more popularly called as several personality disorders is one of the most common disorders amongst all the different types of dissociated disorders. In this disorder, the person has two or more identities or personality states, which surface on different occasions. When the person is in one state, he attains a completely different personality, and he does not remember any personal and important information of the other state. It is more common in females, rather than in males.
Depersonalization is a disorder, where the person experiences a sensation of disinterest or estrangement from one’s own-self. Such feelings are recurrent where the person feels as if he is dreaming or are watching them on a movie screen. It is mostly seen in late adolescents and adults.
The psychiatrist makes a diagnosis of the dissociative disorders by taking carefully the personal history form the patient and family members. There are no laboratory tests for making the diagnosis.
The usual treatment for the dissociative disorders is psychotherapy, hypnotism, and medication to calm down the person.
