The human mind is a complex organ. It has the capacity to arbitrate intricate mental activity by splitting off or dissociating from independent or wakeful states. Al of use tend to dissociate while starting the ignition and thinking how to plan our day, while cleaning the kitchen and talking on the phone, with little or no conscious attention to the task being performed by us. Dissociation is an extremely acclimatizing mechanism that enables us to carry out most day to day functions with utmost efficiency.

Overview of Dissociative Disorders:

Most of the psychological processes of an individual’s life revolve around non-conscious practices that are autonomous in nature such as calculated self-monitoring and planning. This type of unaware processing often extends to the realms of memory and perception, where it can be established that individuals habitually remember and recognize things they cannot say they have perceived. This phenomenon is known as implicit memory and implicit perception respectively. In certain cases, however, this multi-dimensional quality of the human mind loses control and the affected individual may be unable to retrieve information that is in the consciousness such as his/her identity, name or whereabouts. Such an individual may fall under the influence of certain subsystems of mental activity that do not exist in states of awareness and may experience or perform activities in a dream like state. This situation can be destabilizing and can be misused for the management of various stressful life situations. The behavioral aspects of this situation are known as dissociative disorders.

Dissociative Disorders develop as defense mechanisms in order to avoid anxiety and stress evolving out of stressful situations in life and overtake the individual’s coping ability. These disorders are:

• Dissociative Amnesia
• Dissociative Fugue
• Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Depersonalization Disorder

Causes of Dissociative Disorders:

Biological: There is no genetic linkage that can be established for the development of these disorders.

Psychosocial: These include child sexual abuse, incest, brutal childhood abuse, severe neglect, abandonment and neglect that can have a devastating impact on the development of the child. Post traumatic stress disorder and associated situations such as wartime combat, destruction of one’s home due to a natural calamity, death of spouse, children or close relatives in a catastrophe or being taken as hostage.

Socio-cultural factors: These include fantasies, spirit possession etc.