Dissociation Health Dictionary

Also called recovered memory syndrome, this treatment was developed in the wake of the widespread exposure in the 1980s and 90s of the frequency of child sexual abuse. A controversial concept emerged in the USA, picked up later by some experts in the UK, that abused children sometimes suppress their unpleasant memories, and that subsequent PSYCHOTHERAPY could help some victims to recover these memories – thus possibly aiding rehabilitation. This recall of ‘repressed’ memories, however, was believed by some psychiatrists to be, in e?ect, a false memory implanted into the victim’s subconscious by the psychotherapy itself – or perhaps invented by the individual for personal motives.

In 1997 the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK produced a comprehensive report which was sceptical about the notion that the awareness of recurrent severe sexual abuse in children could be pushed entirely out of consciousness. The authors did not believe that events could remain inaccessible to conscious memory for decades, allegedly provoking vague non-speci?c symptoms to be recovered during psychotherapy with resolution of the symptoms. Supporting evidence pointed to the lack of any empirical proof that unconscious dissociation of unpleasant memories from conscious awareness occurred to protect the individual. Furthermore, experimental and natural events had shown that false memories, created through suggestion or in?uence, could be implanted. Many individuals who had claimed to have recovered memories of abuse subsequently withdrew and, often, non-speci?c symptoms allegedly linked to suppression worsened rather than improved as therapy to unlock memories proceeded. The conclusion is that recovered memory therapy should be viewed with great caution.... repressed memory therapy

n. a state in which a person feels him- or herself becoming unreal or strangely altered, or feels that the mind is becoming separated from the body. Minor degrees of this feeling are common in normal people under stress. Severe feelings of depersonalization occur in *anxiety disorder, in states of *dissociation, in depression and schizophrenia, and in epilepsy (particularly temporal-lobe epilepsy). See also derealization; out-of-body experience.... depersonalization

n. a now obsolete name for a *neurosis characterized by emotional instability, repression, dissociation, some physical symptoms (see hysterical), and vulnerability to suggestion. Two types were recognized: conversion hysteria, now known as *conversion disorder; and dissociative hysteria, comprising a group of conditions now generally regarded as *dissociative disorders.... hysteria

(electromechanical dissociation) the appearance of normal-looking complexes on the electrocardiogram that are, however, associated with a state of *cardiac arrest. It is usually caused by large pulmonary emboli (see pulmonary embolism), *cardiac tamponade, tension *pneumothorax, severe disturbance of body salt levels, severe haemorrhage, or hypothermia causing severe lack of oxygen to the heart muscle.... pulseless electrical activity