PS280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Somatic Symptom Disorder, Dissociative Disorder
Document Summary
Anxiety is seen as the underlying feature of dissociative and somatoform disorders. Both are characterized by physical symptoms and/or behaviours that are thought to be caused by the way people think or their ideas. Plato believed a wandering womb (hysteria) caused symptoms of dissociative and somatoform disorders. Early religious beliefs conceived of dissociative states as a kind of possession, with exorcism being the treatment of choice. Freud and breuer identifying severe psychological trauma as important in the etiology of dissociation. The dissociative disorders: dissociative disorders are characterized by severe disturbances or alterations of: identity, memory and consciousness. These disturbances may be sudden or gradual, and they may be transient or chronic. For diagnosis the symptoms must cause clinically signi cant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning. Since the disturbances are patient-identi ed or patient-reported they are called.
