PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

Reactive Attachment Disorder

A consistent pattern of inhibited, emotionally withdrawn behavior toward adult caregivers.

Disturbance is evident before the age of 5 years

Has developmental age of at least 9 months

Disorder has been present for more than 12 months

Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder

A pattern of behavior in which a child actively approaches and interacts with unfamiliar adults

Characteristics:

• Reduced or absent reticence in approaching and interacting with an unfamiliar adult

• Willingness to go off with an unfamiliar adult with minimal or no hesitation

• Developmental age of at least 9 months

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

6 years and above for adults, adolescents, and children

This is an exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one

Depersonalization

Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if one were an outside observer of one’s mental processes or body

Derealization

Persistent or recurrent experiences of unreality of surroundings

Acute stress disorder

PTSD Symptoms lasting from 3 days to 1 month following exposure to the traumatic event.

Adjustment Disorder

Presence of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressor

Dissociative disorders

Characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.

Depersonalization/Derealization disorder

Characterized by clinically significant persistent or recurrent depersonalization.

Depersonalization

Experiences of unreality, detachment, or being an outside observer with respect to one’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, body, or actions

Derealization

Experiences of unreality or detachment with respect to surroundings

Dissociative amnesia

Characterized by an inability to recall autobiographical information that is inconsistent with normal forgetting

Dissociative identity disorder

The presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession and recurrent episodes of dissociative amnesia.

Anterograde/Continous amnesia

Failure to recall successive events as they occur; a person can’t make new memories after an accident

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memory to event that occurred that was learned before the injury

Localized amnesia

Being unable to recall a specific event/s or a specific period of time; these gaps in memory usually related to trauma or stress

Generalized amnesia

Failure to recall one’s life

Systematized amnesia

Failure to recall events in categories