Dissociative disorders[1] are defined a conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or perception. The hypothesis is that symptoms can result, to the extent of interfering with a person's general functioning, when one or more of these functions is disrupted.
The four dissociative disorders listed in the DSM IV TR are as follows:
Depersonalization disorder(DSM-IV Codes 300.6[2]) - periods of detachment from self or surrounding which may be experienced as "unreal" (lacking in control of or "outside of" self) while retaining awareness that this is only a feeling and not a reality.
Dissociative fugue(DSM-IV Codes 300.13[4]) - physical desertion of familiar surroundings and experience of impaired recall of the past. This may lead to confusion about actual identity and the assumption of a new identity.
Dissociative identity disorder (DSM-IV Codes 300.14[5]) - the alternation of two or more distinct personality states with impaired recall, among personality states, of important information.
In addition, there's the diagnosis of dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DSM-IV Codes 300.15[6]) which can be used for forms of pathological dissociation not covered by any of the specified dissociative disorders.
In a 2007 study, only 28.7% of the dissociative participants had received psychiatric treatment previously[7].
