Dissociative Disorders
The information herein is for informational purposes only and not intended as medical advice nor for diagnostic purposes. For specific questions about your’s or your loved one’s diagnosis or treatment, always refer to your doctor.
Dissociative amnesia: This disorder is characterized by a blocking out of critical personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. Dissociative amnesia, unlike other types of amnesia, does not result from other medical trauma (e.g. a blow to the head). Dissociative amnesia has several subtypes:
• Localized amnesia is present in an individual who has no memory of specific events that took place, usually traumatic. The loss of memory is localized with a specific window of time. For example, a survivor of a car wreck who has no memory of the experience until two days later is experiencing localized amnesia.
• Selective amnesia happens when a person can recall only small parts of events that took place in a defined period of time. For example, an abuse victim may recall only some parts of the series of events around the abuse.
• Generalized amnesia is diagnosed when a person’s amnesia encompasses his or her entire life.
• Systematized amnesia is characterized by a loss of memory for a specific category of information. A person with this disorder might, for example, be missing all memories about one specific family member.
Dissociative fugue is a rare disorder. An individual with dissociative fugue suddenly and unexpectedly takes physical leave of his or her surroundings and sets off on a journey of some kind. These journeys can last hours, or even several days or months. Individuals experiencing a dissociative fugue have traveled over thousands of miles. An individual in a fugue state is unaware of or confused about his identity, and in some cases will assume a new identity (although this is the exception).
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), which has been known as multiple personality disorder, is the most famous of the dissociative disorders. An individual suffering from DID has more than one distinct identity or personality state that surfaces in the individual on a recurring basis. This disorder is also marked by differences in memory which vary with the individual’s “alters,” or other personalities. For more information on this, see the NAMI factsheet on dissociative identity disorder.
Depersonalization disorder is marked by a feeling of detachment or distance from one’s own experience, body, or self. These feelings of depersonalization are recurrent. Of the dissociative disorders, depersonalization is the one most easily identified with by the general public; one can easily relate to feeling as they in a dream, or being “spaced out.” Feeling out of control of one’s actions and movements is something that people describe when intoxicated. An individual with depersonalization disorder has this experience so frequently and so severely that it interrupts his or her functioning and experience. A person’s experience with depersonalization can be so severe that he or she believes the external world is unreal or distorted.
Reviewed by Jack D. Maser, Ph.D. of the National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, MD
Permission is granted for this fact sheet to be reproduced in its entirety, including the NAMI name, service mark, and contact information. (June 2000)