Dissociative Amnesia
Dissociative Disorders
Dissociative Disorders are characterized by alterations in perception: a sense of detachment from one’s own self, from the world, or from memories. It likely to happen after an extremely stressful event, such as accident. It also is more likely to happen when you’re tired or sleep deprived from staying up all night cramming for an exam. If you have had an experience od dissociation, it may not have bothered you much, perhaps because you know the cause. On the other hand, it may have been extremely frightening. Transient experiences of dissociation will occur in about half of the general population at some point in their lives. Dissociative Disorder include Depersonalization- Derealization Disorder, Dissociative amnesia, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Dissociative Trance Disorder.
About Dissociative Amnesia:
Severe Dissociative Disorder is Dissociative Amnesia, which includes several patterns. People who are unable to remember anything, including who they are, are said to suffer from Generalized Amnesia. Generalized Amnesia may be lifelong or may extend from a period in the most recent past, such as 6 months or a year previously.
For more common than generalized amnesia is localized or selective amnesia, a failure to recall specific period. In most cases of dissociative amnesia, the forgetting is selective for traumatic events or memories rather than generalized. Cognitive disorders such as Dementia can also be characterized by severe forgetting or Amnesia. In Dissociative Fugue, a subtype of Dissociation Amnesia, memory revolves around a specific incident, an unexpected trip (or trips).
SYMPTOMS
1. Generalized: Inability to remember anything, including identity; comparatively rare.
2. Localized: Inability to remember specific events (usually traumatic); frequently occurs in war.
3. ??re common than general amnesia.
4. Usually adult onset for both types
5. Dissociative Fugue Subtype: Memory loss is accompanied by purposeful travel or bewildered wandering
CAUSES
Dissociative Amnesia seldom appears before adolescence and usually occurs adulthood. Once Dissociative Disorder do appear, however, they may continue well into old age. Dissociative Amnesia is the most prevalent of all the Dissociative Disorders.
Fugue states usually end rather abruptly, and the individual returns home, realling most, if not all, of what happened. In this disorder, the disintegrated experience is more than memory loss, involving at least some disintegration of identity, if not the completed adoption of a new one.
TREATMENTS
Dissociative Amnesia is usually Self Correcting when one's Current life stress gets resolved itself. If Psychotherapy needed, it focuses on retrieving lost information.
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REFERENCE
David H. Barlow, BOSTON UNIVERSITY
V. Mark Durand, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA- ST. PETERSBERG
2. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY: 9TH EDITION
Davision G.C., Neale, J.M. and Kring, A.M.
3. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
Allov. L.B.: Riskind, J.H. and Manos, M.J.
4. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MODERN LIFE. NY: Harper and Collins. 2000
Carson. R.C. and Butcher. N.J.