This second edition of the award-winning original text brings together in one volume the current thinking and conceptualizations on dissociation and the dissociative disorders. Comprised of ten parts, starting with historical and conceptual issues, and ending with considerations for the present and future, internationally renowned authors in the trauma and dissociation fields explore different facets of dissociation in pathological and non-clinical guises. This book is designed to be the most comprehensive reference book in the dissociation field and aims to provide a scholarly foundation for understanding dissociation, dissociative disorders, current issues and perspectives within the field, theoretical formulations, and empirical findings. Chapters have been thoroughly updated to include recent developments in the field, including: the complex nature of conceptualization, etiology, and neurobiology; the various manifestations of dissociation in clinical and non-clinical forms; and different perspectives on how dissociation should be understood. This book is essential for clinicians, researchers, theoreticians, students of clinical psychology psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and those with an interest or curiosity in dissociation in the various ways it can be conceived and studied.

Winner of ISSTD's 2009 Pierre Janet Writing Award for the best publication on dissociation in 2009! Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders is a book that has no real predecessor in the dissociative disorders field. It reports the most recent scientific findings and conceptualizations about dissociation; defines and establishes the boundaries of current knowledge in the dissociative disorders field; identifies and carefully articulates the field’s current points of confusion, gaps in knowledge, and conjectures; clarifies the different aspects and implications of dissociation; and sets forth a research agenda for the next decade. In many respects, Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders both defines and redefines the field.

Janet's brain felt foggy and numb. She imagined herself kneeling on a great frozen lake, and she pressed her face against the ice, trying to see through the cloudy surface to the open water below. In fact, she didn't feel any physical sensation at all, just an internal panic. Janet didn't understand these feelings. She just knew that in her frightening daydreams, she was lost above the ice and the knowledge that could save her was trapped in the dark water below. Soon, Janet was forgetting things, missing school, and losing sleep. She'd find notes that she'd written to herself but couldn't remember writing. They said things like, "Janet! Help me!" and "Who are you?" Scariest of all, she began hearing voices in her head that did not sound like her own. When she imagined herself looking down through the barren ice, she thought she saw a little girl looking back at her. Janet was sure the little girl's name was Sara... Have you ever daydreamed, "lost track of time" when you were having fun, or "tuned out" when your parents were scolding you? If so, you were experiencing dissociation. Janet's dissociation, however, is much more severe. She is suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Different parts of her personality have become so separate that they are beginning to seem like different people. A dissociative disorder like Janet's requires medical intervention. Janet's story, and stories like hers, can teach us a lot about how our minds work and how they can be treated. Read Dissociative Disorders and learn more about these psychiatric disorders and the help available for people like Janet.

An international look at the similarities and differences of long-lasting trauma Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines the psychological, sociological, political, economic, and cultural aspects of trauma and its consequences on people around the world. Dispelling the myth that trauma-related dissociative disorders are a North American phenomenon, this unique book travels through more than a dozen countries to analyze the effects of long-lasting traumatization-both natural and man-made-on adults and children. Working from theoretical and clinical perspectives, the field’s leading experts address trauma in situations that range from the psychological effects of “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland to the emergence of “Hikikomori,” the phenomenon of social withdrawal in Japanese youth. Reactions to trauma can be both unique according to a person’s culture and similar to the experiences of others around the world. Dissociation, intense grief, anger, and survivor’s guilt are common responses as people split off mentally, physically, and emotionally from the source of the trauma, whether it’s an act of nature (tsunami, earthquake, flood, etc.) or the trauma created by violence, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, assault, confinement, kidnapping, and war. Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines the efforts of clinicians and researchers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Australia, and New Zealand to develop sociopsychological methods of providing counseling to people who are suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually, training for professionals counted on to dispense that counseling, and economic and political solutions that might help to limit the devastating effects of natural disasters. Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines: the tensions between the National Health Service and the private sector in the United Kingdom how the Mandarin version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is used in China Djinnai, a culture-bound syndrome and possession trance disorder found in Iran how colonialism has transmitted trauma to the Maori people of New Zealand transgenerational trauma in Turkey religious rituals and spirit possession in the Philippines “memory wars” in Israel traumatic syndromes among the French differences in dissociative experiences among Chinese and Japanese youth childhood trauma in Argentina and much more Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective is an enlightening professional resource for anyone working in psychology, sociology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy.

Handbook for the Assessment of Dissociation: A Clinical Guide is the first book to offer guidelines for the systematic assessment of dissociation and posttraumatic syndromes. This book provides a comprehensive overview of dissociative symptoms and disorders, as well as an introduction to the use of the SCID-D, a diagnostic interview for the dissociative disorders includes chapters on differential diagnosis, a discussion of the relationship between dissociation and trauma, and a sample patient interview serves the needs of novices in the field as well as experienced clinicians and researchers

Dissociative identity disorders are typically caused by trauma occurring at less than nine years of age. This book provides essential information on Dissociative Disorders, but also serves as a historical survey, by providing information on the controversies surrounding its causes, and first-person narratives by people coping with Dissociative Disorders. Patients, family members, or caregivers explain the condition from their own experience. The symptoms, causes, treatments, and potential cures are explained in detail. Essential to anyone trying to learn about diseases and conditions, the alternative treatments are explored. Each essay is carefully edited and presented with an introduction, so that they are accessible for student researchers and readers.

Within the last decade there has been a tremendous explosion in the clinical, theoretical, and empirical literature related to the study of dissociation. Not since the work done at the tum of the century by Pierre Janet, Morton Prince, William James, and others have the psychological and medical communities shown this great an interest in describing and understanding dissociative phenomena. This volume is the result of this significant expansion. Presently, interest in the scientific and clinical progress in the field of dissociation is indicated by the following: 1. The explosion of conferences, workshops, and seminars devoted to disso ciative disorders treatment and research. 2. The emergence of NIMH-supported investigations that focus on dissociation. 3. The burgeoning literature on dissociation. According to a 1992 biblio graphic analysis of the field by Goettman et al. (1992), 72% of all writings on the topic have appeared in the past decade, with about 1000 published papers scattered across diverse disciplines and journals. 4. Current interest in dissociation as reflected in the appearance of major articles and special issues in respected psychology and psychiatry journals. 5. The initiation of a journal entitled Dissociation (Richard Kluft, MD, Editor) devoted to the area.

Dissociative disorders are one of the psychiatric consequences of childhood psychological trauma. While oppression is an aspect of traumatic conditions, dissociation undermines resistance to oppression throughout a person’s lifespan. Neither oppression nor dissociation are restricted to particular cultures, and both can affect the individual as well as societies. This collection engages with the universality of dissociative disorders and their close relationship to oppression. The chapters cover extreme examples such as ongoing incest in adulthood, children and adults forced to kill others, and abusive states in interrogation. Further subjects examined include the utilization of dissociation in postmodern societies to maintain oppression, the oppressive conditions of asylum seekers and the consequences of oppression as they are dealt with in psychotherapy. The final chapter considers how a paedophile pandering network employed multi-layered oppression to prevent the public becoming aware of the widespread and organised abuse of children. This book will engender interactions between trauma investigators – those whose approach is close clinical observation, those who use instruments to survey groups of individuals, those whose research takes the form of investigative journalism, and those who examine the truth embedded or hidden in documents created for multiple, and at times, disturbing political purposes. Portions of this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. It also includes material from other sources.

This book uses case history methodology to illustrate the relationship between theory and practice of the study of Dissociation Identity Disorder (DID). Challenging conventional wisdom on all sides, the book traces the clinical and social history of dissociation in a provocative examination of this widely debated phenomenon. It reviews the current state of DID-related controversy so that readers may draw their own conclusions and examines the evolution of hypnosis and the ways it has been used and misused in the treatment of cases with DID. The book is rigorously illustrated with two centuries’ worth of famous cases.