Diagnosing mental disorders. DSM-5 and ICD-10. Dissociative disorders

Description

We all may have times that we are unaware of our actions--where we go on "autopilot" so that our mind wanders to some other place while our body goes through the motions. Maybe we've been so caught up in a thought while driving that we've been going for miles without even realizing it. Or in an emotional moment, like after a break-up or losing a job, we may feel overwhelmed, so that minutes pass without us even knowing how we spent them. It could even be that at some random moment, we've experienced a surreal kind of detachment, where we feel disconnected from our thoughts, bodies or surroundings. For most of us, these moments of dissociation pass, and even when we may find them troubling, they usually don't cause ongoing and significant distress in our lives. For some people, however, this dissociation not only persists, but can make so that a person has no memory of an aspect, or aspects, of their lives. They may even find that during this gap in memory, they behaved in a way that was incongruous with their own sense of identity, as if another personality state had taken control of their body. And even if they don't have gaps in memory, they may experience a disconnect from themselves or their surroundings. This is the case for individuals with dissociative disorders. These individuals experience symptoms, some of them positive--meaning something has been added, such as flashbacks or intrusive identities, some of them negative--meaning something almost seems taken away, such as memories in the case of amnesia. But all of them have the potential to leave the individual feeling disconnected from themselves, their lives and the world around them.

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20 minutes

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Alexander Street

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