Dissociation Disorders are conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity, or perception. Some of the most common symptoms of dissociative disorders are memory loss, a sense of being detached from one’s self, perception errors, a clouded sense of identity, incapability to cope with stress, and frequent mental health issues like anxiety, suicide, and depression. These symptoms vary based on the specific type of dissociative disorder one has. It is incurable, but it is treatable. Women are more likely to acquire dissociative disorders because they show more frequent acute symptoms than men do.
How are they diagnosed?
Just like any other illness, diagnosis is reached post examination. …show more content…
In this exam the patient’s doctor reviews the symptoms and history of the patient. As this happens the doctor may ask some in depth questions to get more of an understanding for the problem at hand. The doctor runs test to rule out certain physical conditions. Some injuries can cause the same or similar symptoms to dissociative disorders. Sleep deprivation can cause a sense of unreality. Next, the psychiatric exam is performed. Unlike the physical exam, the psychiatric exam is carried out by a mental health professional or psychiatrist. The psychiatrist asks questions about the patient's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and symptoms. Sometimes other family members are involved to get various opinions and ask questions. Lastly the mental health professional diagnose the patient according to the DSM-5. The DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that was published by the American Psychiatric Association. To diagnose the patient the mental health professional compares the symptoms to the criteria for various disorders. Based on the matching criteria the verdict is made on which disorder the patient …show more content…
It can affect parts of a person’s life. The loss of memory is often associated with a specific trauma or period of time. Generalized dissociative amnesia is a bit less common than localized. With generalized D.A. both life and identity will be affected by memory loss. Someone can not only lose the knowledge of themselves, but also of the people they love that’s around them. Fugue dissociative amnesia is the rarest form of D.A. With fugue a person and complete amnesia and may adopt a completely new identity with no knowledge of who they were before. Dissociative amnesia and medical amnesia differs because with medical amnesia causes memories to return gradually over time while with D.A. memories can come back