Chapter Ten: Psychological Disorders

Dissociative Disorders

INTRODUCTION

Consciousness, behavior, and identity are severely altered in dissociative disorders. Dealing with traumatic experiences has been split away and forgotten to help escape the distress of the trauma.

WHAT'S AHEAD

• What causes otherwise healthy people to forget who they are?
• Why are many clinicians and researchers skeptical about multiple personality disorder?

KEY CONCEPTS

Amnesia and Fugue
Dissociative Identity Disorder ("Multiple Personality")

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Amnesia and Fugue (p.351)

.Amnesia (p.351)

INTRODUCTION

The inability to remember important personal information, usually of a traumatic nature.

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED

• Biological cause:
  
  
  • Head injury or other organic conditions.
    
    
• Psychogenic cause:
  
  
  • Psychogenic - psychological, not organic, in origin
  • Dissociative - same as above.
    
    
  • Example: The shock and fear of having been responsible for a car accident sets off the amnesia (dissociation) so he doesn't have to confront his distress.
    
    
• Controversy: Can memory be repressed? [Future rewind to Memory Chapter 7]

.Fugue (p.352)

INTRODUCTION

Person forgets their identity, customary habits, and wanders far from home.

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED

• A more pervasive "forgetting" than in amnesia but mechanism is the same.

• It has been difficult for scientists to determine when it is a true disorder and when the person is just faking it.

GLOSSARY

	dissociative disorders
	amnesia (dissociative)
	fugue

LINKS About Amnesia and Fugue

• www.link: Multiple Sclerosis - myelin sheath problem.

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Dissociative Identity Disorder (p.352)
.....(Multiple Personality Disorder [MPD])

INTRODUCTION

The appearance, within one person, of two or more distinct identities which have their own memories, preferences, traits, and problems.

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED

..The Controversy:

Is MPD a common but often unrecognized disorder, or is it very rare and most cases are generated by therapists?

..MPD is "Real" Camp

• MPD originates in childhood as a way of coping with unspeakable, continuing trauma.
  
  
• "Splitting" of personalities occurs so that one personality handles every day experiences and the other copes with the traumatic experiences.
  
  
• Usually revealed through hypnosis or similar therapeutic technique.
  
  
• Each "personality" shows different physiological responses.
  
  
  • Anecdotes and no control groups in early reports.
    
    
  • When healthy subjects role play different personalities, they show the same variations in their physiological responses!

..The MPD "Is Not" Camp

• MPD may be created through the power of suggestion.
  
  
• Sociocognitive explanation: MPD is an extreme form of the ability we all have to present different aspects of our personalities to other.
  
  
  • MPD allows troubled people to make sense of their problems.
    
    
  • Therapists "reward" patients by paying attention to these specific symptoms which helps patients organize their memories to make them more consistent with the diagnosis.
    
    
• Little empirical support for the existence of MPD.

GLOSSARY

dissociative identity disorder

LINKS About the Dissociative Identity Disorder

• www.link: International Society for the Study of Dissociation.
• www.link: Overview of the Dissociative Disorders.
• www.link: Student papers on various aspects of MPD.
• www.link: Overview of the Dissociative Disorders.
• www.link: A resource page for those who believe in MPD.

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