Article Sections

Introduction

Dissociative disorders involve significant disruptions in mental functioning that affect consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, and behavior.  Dissociative symptoms are involuntary, functionally impairing, and distressing.  These disorders are often associated with psychological trauma and include depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD), dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder (DID).

Risk factors

Factors that increase the risk for developing a dissociative disorder include earlier age at onset of trauma; neglect and/or sexual, physical, or emotional abuse by parents/caregivers; severe acute or chronic stress (eg, surviving a natural disaster); and repeated trauma or torture associated with captivity (eg, prisoner of war, survivor of human trafficking).

Depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD)

Clinical presentation

Symptoms include 1 or both of the following:

  • Depersonalization:  feeling of being disconnected from one's entire self ("I am watching myself from the outside") or aspects of oneself (eg, thoughts ["My thoughts are not my own"], feelings, body parts, sensations)

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Tables

Table 1