Exam 2 Dissociative and Somatic Disorders

Describe/Define Somatic Symptom Disorder

Physical symptoms suggesting medical disease but without demonstratable organic pathology or a known pathophysiological mechanism to account for them.

Occur in response to repressed severe anxiety.

Types of somatic symptom disorders

Somatic symptom disorder, illness anxiety disorder, conversion disorder, and factitious disorder.

A syndrome of multiple symptoms that cannot be explain medically and is associated with psychosocial distress and long-term seeking of assistance from healthcare professionals.

The disorder is chronic, and anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation are frequently manifested.

Drug abuse and dependence are common complications of somatic symptom disorder.

Personality characteristics:

Heightened emotionality, strong dependency needs, and a preoccupation with symptoms and oneself.

Identify illness anxiety disorder. What is a possible reason this disorder develops?

o   Unrealistic or inaccurate interpretation of physical symptoms or sensations, leading to preoccupation and fear of having a disease.

o   A past experience with serious or life-threatening physical illness, either personal or that of close relatives, can predispose the person to illness anxiety disorder.

Define/identify dissociative general amnesia

Anything that happened during the individual’s entire lifetime, including personal identity.

Dissociative selective amnesia

Only certain incidents associated with a traumatic event.

Localized amnesia

All incidents associated with the traumatic event

Dissociative fugue

A specific subtype of dissociative amnesia.

There is sudden, unexpected travel away from home with the inability to recall some or all of one’s past

Causes of Dissociative Identify Disorder (DID) (formerly multiple personality disorder)

o   Characterized by the existence of two or more personalities within a single individual.

Transition from one personality to another usually sudden, often dramatic, and usually precipitated by stress

Depersonalization

Disturbance in the perception of oneself

Derealization

Alteration in the perception of the external environment