Dissociative disorders

Dissociative disorders are defined as conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or perception. The hypothesis being that the symptoms can result, to the extent of interfering with a person's general functioning, when one or more of these functions is disrupted.

The four dissociative disorders listed in the DSM IV TR are as follows:


 * Dissociative Amnesia - noticeable impairment of recall resulting from emotional trauma
 * Depersonalization disorder - periods of detachment from self or surrounding which may be experienced as "unreal", lacking in control of or "outside of" self while retaining awareness that this is only a feeling and not a reality.
 * Dissociative fugue - physical desertion familiar surroundings and experience of impaired recall of the past. This may lead to confusion about actual identity and the assumption of a new identity.
 * Dissociative identity disorder - the alternation of two or more distinct personality states with impaired recall, among personality states, of important information.

See Also:


 * Dissociation
 * Dissociative Amnesia
 * Depersonalization disorder
 * Dissociative fugue
 * Dissociative identity disorder