Dissociative disorders

Abstract

Dissociation is a phenomenon in which there is a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. During the period of dissociation, certain information is split off from other information with which it is normally connected. Dissociative experience is probably a continuum, from complete absorption in a task with total unawareness of surroundings, to fugue states, to total amnesia. The diagnosis and treatment of depersonalization, derealization, dissociative amnesia, fugue states, and dissociative identity disorder are discussed.