Dissociation (psychology)

This article is about the psychological state of dissociation.

Dissociation is a psychological state or condition in which certain thoughts, emotions, sensations, or memories are separated from the rest of the psyche. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "splitting."

The French psychiatrist Pierre Janet (1859-1947) coined the term in his book L'Automatisme psychologique; he emphasized its role as a defensive maneuver in response to psychological trauma. While he considered dissociation an initially effective defence mechanism that withdraws the individual psychologically from the impact of overwhelming traumatic events, a habitual tendency to dissociate would, however, promote psychopathology.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition considers symptoms such as depersonalization, derealization, and psychogenic amnesia to be core features of dissociative disorders. However, in the normal population mild dissociative experiences are highly prevalent, with 80% to 90% of the respondents indicating that they have had dissociative experiences at least some of the time.

Attention to dissociation as a clinical feature is growing in recent years as a concomitant to knowledge of post-traumatic stress disorder, and as neuroimaging research and population studies show its relevance. Dissociation most often makes the news with regards to soldiers' responses to wartime stress, rape victims with amnesia for details, and in occasional criminal trials where the question of whether a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) can be responsible for his or her actions.

Perhaps the most widely-known form of dissociative disorder is DID, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Dissociation has a storied role in murder trials, or at least in movies about murder, where it is occasionally given as a reason for a "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict. While MPD is the most severe form of dissociative disorders, it is not accepted by all psychiatrists as real (see Multiple personality controversy).

Table of contents

See also

External links

*[Dissociative Identity Disorder http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip//did.html]

*International Society for the Study of Dissociation A society that advances the formal study of dissociation and dissociative disorders.

*DepersonalizationDisorder.net: Online educational resource for those who suffer from this and other dissociative disorders. Offering further information, articles, treatments, and diagnosis criteria.

*Depersonalization Community – Support site for those suffering from dissociative disorders.

*[http://www.estd.org]: European Society for the study of trauma and dissociation.

*[http://ukssd.org]: United Kingdom society for the study of dissociation.

*[http://dissociationuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk]: UKCP registered psychotherapist Richard Cross who is based in Scotland provides interesting articles and information on a range of areas including PTSD & Dissociation.

*[http://www.psychotraumatology-institute-europe.com/E_index.html]: aims to foster continuing education and research of chronic traumatization.

Page views:

References

Return to the table of contents/home.

Disclaimer: The author is not responsible for any contents linked or referred to from his or her pages - unless s/he has full knowledge of illegal contents and would be able to prevent the visitors of his site from viewing those pages. If any damage occurs by the use of information presented there, only the author of the respective pages might be liable, not the one who has linked to these pages. Furthermore the author is not liable for any postings or messages published by users of discussion boards, guestbooks or mailing lists provided on his or her page. The author is not a psychiatrist or physician / medical doctor or legal attorney of any sort. This website is not intended to replace medical, psychiatric or legal care. Please seek professional attention as needed. The information provided is not intended to replace obtaining medical evaluations and health care advice from qualified health care providers. This site's owners are providing information for reference only, and do not intend said Information to be used for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical conditions, or for any other purposes. The owner/author of this site MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF SAID INFORMATION, OR THE FITNESS OF THE INFORMATION TO BE USED FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, LOSS, EXPENSE, OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND TO USER, OR TO ANY THIRD PARTY, RELATED TO THE USE OF SAID INFORMATION. Persons accessing any information of this web site, directly or indirectly, assume full responsibility for the use of the Information and understand and agree that the author of rape crisis information is not responsible or liable for any claim, loss, or damage arising from the use of said information.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "rape".

Copyright information available on the History page.

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) One or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version: Survivor, Five of the principal authors of the Document: Wolok, Misokitty, Grass, Nlu, A J Hay, Survivor. The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version. Name of the publisher of the Modified Version: pbwiki

All modified material Copyright to Rape Crisis Information Survivor Wiki.

Copyright (c) 2006 Survivor.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document

under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;

with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU

Free Documentation License".