DID Flashcards
(36 cards)
A college student reports feeling as if they are watching themselves from outside their body during stressful situations. At times, they also describe the environment around them as unreal or dreamlike, as if they’re in a fog. These episodes are starting to affect their daily functioning.
What disorder is being described?
Dissociative Disorders
Characterized by individuals feeling detached from themselves (depersonalization) or their surroundings (derealization)
Dissociative Disorders
What is Derealization?
is a dissociative symptom where a person feels detached from their surroundings, as if the world around them isn’t real. Everything might feel foggy, dreamlike, blurry, artificial, or distant. People or objects may seem unfamiliar, distorted, or even fake.
Like depersonalization, the person knows their perception isn’t reality—they’re not delusional, just feeling disconnected.
In this example, what is this type of Dissociative Disorder?
You’re walking through a familiar street, but suddenly it feels like you’re in a dream. The buildings and people around you seem colorless, two-dimensional, or as if you’re viewing them through a glass wall. Sounds feel muted, and time seems to slow down. You know you’re there and nothing has changed—but it feels wrong, surreal, or off.
Example of Derealization
A disorder where intense feelings of unreality become so severe and frightening that they interfere with a person’s ability to function normally in daily life.
Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder
A condition in which an individual experiences a disturbingly altered perception of themselves or their surroundings, often alongside anxiety, depression, or a personality disorder.
Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder
Give all the symptoms of Depersonalization
- Feeling detached from one’s body, mind, feeling, and/or sensations.
- Feeling that you’re an outside observer of your thoughts, feelings, your body or parts of your body.
- Feeling like a robot or that you’re not in control of your speech or movements.
- The sense that your body, legs, or arms appear distorted, enlarged or shrunken, or that your head is wrapped in cotton.
- A sense that your memories lack emotions, and that they may or may not be your own memories
Give all the symptoms of Derealization
- Feeling detached from their surroundings (eg. people, objects, everything), which seem unreal.
- Feelings of being alienated from or unfamiliar with your surroundings
- Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about, as if you were separated by a glass wall
- Surroundings that appear distorted, blurry, colorless, two-dimensional, or artificial, or a heightened awareness and clarity of your surroundings
- Distortion is a perception of time, such as recent events feeling like a distant past.
- Distortions of distance and the size and shape of objects
What is the treatment for Depersonalization-Derealization disorder?
The treatment are:
* Cognitive techniques can help block obsessive thinking about the unreal state of being.
* Behavioral techniques can help patients engage in tasks that distract them from the depersonalization and derealization.
* Grounding techniques use the 5 senses.
(e.g., by playing loud music or placing a piece of ice in the hand) to help patients feel more connected to themselves and the world and feel more in the present moment.
* Psychodynamic therapy helps patients deal with negative feelings, underlying conflicts, or experiences that make certain affects intolerable to the self and thus dissociated.
* Moment-to-moment tracking and labelling of affect and dissociation in therapy sessions works well for some patients.
A dissociative disorder marked by the inability to recall important personal information, often related to trauma or stress, and not explainable by ordinary forgetting.
Dissociative Amnesia
A reversible condition that disrupts a person’s autobiographical memory, making it difficult for them to remember significant life events, usually triggered by psychological distress.
Dissociative Amnesia
Symptoms of Dissociative amnesia
- The main symptom of dissociative amnesia is memory loss that is inconsistent with normal forgetfulness. The amnesia may be Localized, Selective, Generalized, Systematized amnesia, Continuous amnesia.
- Most patients are partly unaware that they have gaps in their memory.
- Patients often are acutely amnesic after they become amnestic may appear confused.
- Difficulty forming and maintaining relationship * Depressive and functional neurologic symptoms are common.
TRUE OR FALSE: Depersonalization involves feeling detached from your surroundings.
Answer: ❌ False
Explanation: Depersonalization is feeling detached from yourself (e.g., your body, thoughts, or emotions), not the surroundings. Feeling detached from the environment is derealization.
TRUE OR FALSE: Individuals with derealization may perceive the world as foggy, dreamlike, or visually distorted.
Answer: ✅ True
Explanation: Derealization includes altered perception of surroundings—objects and people may seem unreal, foggy, or even colorless or two-dimensional.
TRUE OR FALSE: Dissociative Identity Disorder involves two or more distinct personality states.
Answer: ✅ True
Explanation: DID is defined by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that take control of the person’s behavior at different times.
In Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder, reality testing is usually impaired.
Answer: ❌ False
Explanation: Reality testing remains intact in Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder. Despite feeling detached, the individual knows that their experiences are not real.
Dissociative Amnesia is caused by head injuries and always affects long-term memory.
Answer: ❌ False
Explanation: Dissociative Amnesia is psychological, often triggered by trauma or stress, not physical injury. It primarily affects autobiographical memory, not always long-term memory.
A symptom of depersonalization is feeling like a robot or feeling as though you’re not in control of your body.
Answer: ✅ True
Explanation: This is a classic symptom—individuals may feel robotic, as though they are merely observing their own movements.
In DID, memory gaps are common, and people may forget everyday events.
Answer: ✅ True
Explanation: Individuals with DID often experience recurrent memory gaps, especially regarding daily tasks, personal information, or traumatic events.
The treatment for dissociative disorders typically includes short-term medication only.
Answer: ❌ False
Explanation: Treatment is often long-term and psychotherapy-based. Medications like antidepressants may be prescribed, but they are not the sole treatment.
TRUE OR FALSE: People with derealization may feel like there’s a glass wall between them and the world.
Answer: ✅ True
Explanation: A common description of derealization is feeling emotionally disconnected from others, as if separated by a barrier like a glass wall.
for a specific category of information.
Jenna can’t remember anything about her family, but remembers school, friends, and daily life.
Systematized Amnesia
forgets new events as it occurs.
Since a stressful event, Ben can’t remember anything that happens day-to-day. He remembers the past but forgets new things as they happen
Continuous Amnesia
during a specific period of time.
After a car accident, Alex can’t remember anything that happened during the week of the crash, but remembers everything else in life.
Localized Amnesia
