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Symptoms of Dissociative Personality Disorders

admin — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:50:51 +0000

Dissociative personality disorder is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. It is a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.

Along with multiple or split personalities, people with dissociative disorders may experience any of the following symptoms:

Extensive inability to recall important personal information that cannot be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.
Sudden anger without any cause.
Depression, anxiety, passivity and dependence may be present.
Visual or auditory hallucinations (sensory experiences that are not real, such as hearing voices) may occur.
The presence of at least two distinct personalities with their own relatively enduring pattern of sensing, thinking about, and relating to self and environment.
Sleep disorders, such as insomnia, nightmares, sleepwalking can occur.
Distortion or loss of subjective time.

What Causes Dissociative Personality Disorder

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:20:05 +0000

Dissociative personality disorder (multiple personality) is a severe mental disorder in which a person has more than one distinct identity or personality state. It is a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. Individuals with Dissociative personality disorder may also have post-traumatic symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, and startle responses or Post-Traumatic Stress.

Factors which can cause Dissociative personality disorder (multiple personality) are following:

Dissociative personality disorder results from extreme and repeated trauma that occurs during important periods of development in childhood. The trauma often involves severe emotional, physical or sexual abuse. The person disconnects himself from the trauma and is therefore able to escape from the unbearable physical and emotional pain. The thoughts, feelings and memories of the event are dissociated from the mind of the person, as if they had never occurred.
Dissociative personality disorder may run in families. There might be an inherited tendency to dissociate.
Multiple personality disorder is sometimes triggered by organic causes. For instance, brain injury, temporal lobe epilepsy sometimes can lead to personality split. Other organic causes of multiple personality disorder include sleep loss, sensory deprivation and stroke.
An important early loss, such as the loss of a parent also might be a cause of Dissociative personality disorder.

What Is Dissociative Personality Disorder?

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:41:05 +0000

Dissociative personality disorder is also known as multiple personality disorder. It is an extremely complex disorder that results in two or more split identities. Dissociative disorders are mental illnesses that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity or perception. It is a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. The person with Dissociative personality disorder may or may not be aware of the other personality states

Other types of dissociative disorders defined in the DSM-IV are:

Dissociative amnesia.
Dissociative fugue.
Depersonalization disorder.

Dissociation is a key feature of dissociative disorders. Dissociation can serve as a defense mechanism against the physical and emotional pain of a traumatic or stressful experience. By dissociating painful memories from everyday thought processes, a person can use dissociation to get rid of stressful or painful situations. Even after the trauma is long past, however, the leftover pattern of dissociation to escape stressful situations continues. The person also experiences memory loss that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. Some people with Dissociative Disorders can hold highly responsible jobs, contributing to society in a variety of professions, the arts, and public service — appearing to function normally to coworkers, neighbors, and others with whom they interact daily.