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Psych TopicsGeneral adult psychiatry — dissociative disorders

Psych · General adult psychiatry — dissociative disorders

Dissociative disorders

Also known as Dissociative identity disorder · DID · Multiple personality disorder · Depersonalisation · Derealisation · DPDR · Dissociative amnesia · Dissociative fugue · OSDD

Exam-exhaustive fellowship reference on dissociative disorders — DID with balanced trauma vs sociocognitive evidence, DPDR, dissociative amnesia, DES/SCID-D assessment, differentials from psychosis and BPD, phase-oriented ISSTD care, TOP DD outcomes, risk and iatrogenic pitfalls. FRANZCP-primary, globally tagged.

medium18 referencesUpdated 25 July 202611 min readVerification in progress

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Practise this topic10 MCQs with explanations

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNBNEET-SS

Red flags

  • Active suicidal intent, plan, or escalating self-injury with dissociation — same-day senior review, means restriction, documented safety plan
  • First-onset identity alteration or amnesia with focal neurology, seizure clues, fever, or marked confusion — medical/organic work-up before psychiatric labelling
  • Fugue with wandering, inability to care for self, or inability to give history — urgent safety and capacity assessment
  • Aggressive 'memory recovery', hypnosis, or leading interviews that risk confabulation and iatrogenic harm
  • Presuming schizophrenia from internal voices alone without assessing reality testing, thought form, and amnesia pattern
  • Returning a patient to ongoing interpersonal violence or coercive control while starting trauma processing
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Your progress

Saved on this device.

Practise this topic10 MCQs with explanations

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNBNEET-SS

Red flags

  • Active suicidal intent, plan, or escalating self-injury with dissociation — same-day senior review, means restriction, documented safety plan
  • First-onset identity alteration or amnesia with focal neurology, seizure clues, fever, or marked confusion — medical/organic work-up before psychiatric labelling
  • Fugue with wandering, inability to care for self, or inability to give history — urgent safety and capacity assessment
  • Aggressive 'memory recovery', hypnosis, or leading interviews that risk confabulation and iatrogenic harm
  • Presuming schizophrenia from internal voices alone without assessing reality testing, thought form, and amnesia pattern
  • Returning a patient to ongoing interpersonal violence or coercive control while starting trauma processing
The one-line answer

Dissociative disorders are disruptions in the integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception or behaviour — DID, dissociative amnesia, DPDR, and OSDD — assessed with trauma-informed history, DES screening and SCID-D structure, discriminated carefully from psychosis and BPD, and managed with phase-oriented psychotherapy (safety before story), comorbidity-targeted medication, and explicit respect for both the trauma evidence and the iatrogenesis risk.[1][2][11]

Meet the patient

A 32-year-old woman is referred as "psychosis?" She hears arguing voices — but they are inside her head, and she calls them "the others". She finds shopping bags she doesn't remember buying. She has "lost" three days this month. Her notes arrive from a clinic across town where they know her by a different name. She is terrified, oriented, and has twice presented after overdoses.[2][8]

The examiner's question: is this schizophrenia, borderline, malingering — or dissociation? This topic teaches you to hold that question without flinching in either direction.[2][4]

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References18ShowHide
  1. [1]Spiegel D, Lewis-Fernández R, Lanius R, Vermetten E, Simeon D Dissociative disorders in DSM-5 Annu Rev Clin Psychol, 2013.PMID 23394228
  2. [2]Dorahy MJ, Brand BL, Sar V, Krüger C, Stavropoulos P Dissociative identity disorder: An empirical overview Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 2014.PMID 24788904
  3. [3]Dalenberg CJ, Brand BL, Gleaves DH, Dorahy MJ, Loewenstein RJ Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation Psychol Bull, 2012.PMID 22409505
  4. [4]Lynn SJ, Maxwell R, Merckelbach H, Lilienfeld SO, Kloet DVH Dissociation and its disorders: Competing models, future directions, and a way forward Clin Psychol Rev, 2019.PMID 31494349
  5. [5]Lyssenko L, Schmahl C, Bockhacker L, Vonderlin R, Bohus M Dissociation in Psychiatric Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using the Dissociative Experiences Scale Am J Psychiatry, 2018.PMID 28946763
  6. [6]Sar V, Akyüz G, Doğan O Prevalence of dissociative disorders among women in the general population Psychiatry Res, 2007.PMID 17157389
  7. [7]Foote B, Smolin Y, Kaplan M, Legatt ME, Lipschitz D Prevalence of dissociative disorders in psychiatric outpatients Am J Psychiatry, 2006.PMID 16585436
  8. [8]Foote B, Smolin Y, Neft DI, Lipschitz D Dissociative disorders and suicidality in psychiatric outpatients J Nerv Ment Dis, 2008.PMID 18195639
  9. [9]Bernstein EM, Putnam FW Development, reliability, and validity of a dissociation scale J Nerv Ment Dis, 1986.PMID 3783140
  10. [10]Steinberg M Advances in the clinical assessment of dissociation: the SCID-D-R Bull Menninger Clin, 2000.PMID 10842445
  11. [11]International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision J Trauma Dissociation, 2011.PMID 21391103
  12. [12]Myrick AC, Webermann AR, Loewenstein RJ, Lanius R, Putnam FW Six-year follow-up of the treatment of patients with dissociative disorders study Eur J Psychotraumatol, 2017.PMID 28680542
  13. [13]Hunter EC, Baker D, Phillips ML, Sierra M, David AS Cognitive-behaviour therapy for depersonalisation disorder: an open study Behav Res Ther, 2005.PMID 16005701
  14. [14]Simeon D Depersonalisation disorder: a contemporary overview CNS Drugs, 2004.PMID 15089102
  15. [15]Sierra M, Baker D, Medford N, Lawrence E, Patel M Lamotrigine as an add-on treatment for depersonalization disorder: a retrospective study of 32 cases Clin Neuropharmacol, 2006.PMID 16960469
  16. [16]Lanius RA, Vermetten E, Loewenstein RJ, Brand B, Schmahl C Emotion modulation in PTSD: Clinical and neurobiological evidence for a dissociative subtype Am J Psychiatry, 2010.PMID 20360318
  17. [17]Reinders AA, Willemsen AT, Vos HP, den Boer JA, Nijenhuis ER Fact or factitious? A psychobiological study of authentic and simulated dissociative identity states PLoS One, 2012.PMID 22768068
  18. [18]Johnson JG, Cohen P, Kasen S, Brook JS Dissociative disorders among adults in the community, impaired functioning, and axis I and II comorbidity J Psychiatr Res, 2006.PMID 16337235

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