The New York Times (10/5, Caron), in light of numerous and often inaccurate TikTok videos and social media posts defining dissociative disorders, differentiates between dissociative identity disorder (DID), depersonalization/derealization disorder, and dissociative amnesia. In spite of “the inclusion of D.I.D. in the D.S.M.-5., the American Psychiatric Association’s official manual of mental disorders, some psychiatrists and psychologists think that patients with symptoms of D.I.D. actually have borderline personality disorder.” According to the APA, people “who experience depersonalization can feel at times as though they are detached from their mind or body…like they are watching events happen to them,” while “derealization…refers to feeling detached from the environment as though the people and things in the world are not real, in some cases appearing like cardboard cutouts.” Dissociative amnesia “occurs in response to a variety of different types of trauma, and involves having blocks of time where you lose your identity and are not able to recall important information about your life.”
Related Links:
— “What Does It Really Mean to Dissociate?,”Christina Caron , The New York Times, October 5, 2023