Abnormal Psychology: Chapter 10 - Dissociative Disorders

Question 1

A mental disorder that involves disruptions in a person’s normally integrated sense of memory, consciousness, or identity.

Answer 1

dissociative disorder

Question 2

The process by which the normally integrated elements of consciousness, memory, and personal identity become splintered

Answer 2

dissociation

Question 3

A feeling that individuals have become detached from their real self, as if they are observing themselves from outside the body.

Answer 3

depersonalization

Question 4

A feeling that objects or events are strange or unreal, or have suddenly changed shape, size, or location.

Answer 4

derealization

Question 5

Individuals’ uncertainty about the nature of their own identity, of who they are.

Answer 5

identity confusion

Question 6

Behavioral patterns suggesting that individuals have assumed a new identity

Answer 6

identity alteration

Question 7

The sense that another spirit or being has taken over one’s behavior or mental processes.

Answer 7

pathological possession

Question 8

In dissociative identity disorder, the process of changing from one personality to another; thought to be stimulated by anxiety.

Answer 8

switching

Question 9

Sudden loss of memory for personally important information that is not caused by a medical condition or other mental disorder; usually following a stressful event.

Answer 9

dissociative amnesia

Question 10

Loss of memory for a distinct period of time, usually the few hours immediately after a specific trauma.

Answer 10

localized amnesia

Question 11

Ability to remember only some of the events surrounding a trauma; the remainder are forgotten.

Answer 11

selective amnesia

Question 12

Loss of memory of a person’s entire life

Answer 12

generalized amnesia

Question 13

The loss of memory for events from a particular time or trauma up to the present.

Answer 13

continuous amnesia

Question 14

Loss of memory for certain classes of information.

Answer 14

systematized amnesia

Question 15

A dissociative state in which individuals travel to a new location without remembering their pre-fugue life, often also becoming confused about their identity.

Answer 15

dissociative fugue

Question 16

A disorder in which individuals experience both depersonalization (detachment from others or themselves) and derealization (feeling that the world is not real) in the absence of other physical and mental disorders.

Answer 16

depersonalization/derealization disorder

Question 17

The claim that dissociative identity disorder is caused by childhood trauma, with which the person tries to cope by creating alternate personalities.

Answer 17

post-traumatic model (PTM)

Question 18

The claim that dissociative identity disorder is a diagnosis given to people who have learning to enact a role that emphasizes multiple personalities, often in response to suggestions from therapist, media portrayals, or cultural influences; has been extended as the fantasy model.

Answer 18

sociocognitive model

Question 19

The claim that dissociation makes individuals prone to fantasy, thereby engendering confabulated memories of trauma commonly seen in people with dissociative identity disorders.

Answer 19

fantasy model (FM)

Question 20

A dimension of personality that describes a person’s tendency to become caught up in private reveries, imaginings, or a current task, to the exclusion of surrounding stimuli; also known as fantasy proneness or imaginative involvement.

Answer 20

absorption