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The three types of dissociation that keep us disconnected

Updated: Jul 23

As mental health awareness grows, the term "dissociation" is being used more commonly in conversation and on social media, but what is dissociation exactly? Broadly speaking, dissociation is an involuntary coping mechanism that the brain uses to protect itself from overwhelming experiences. When being present to what's happening doesn't feel safe, dissociation disconnects us. It's the brain's way of managing what's unmanageable.


Although Dissociative Disorders and Trauma-and Stressor-related Disorders are separate categories in the psychiatric diagnostic manual (the DSM-5), many clinicians recognize that trauma and dissociation go hand-in-hand, and that dissociative symptoms result from overwhelming, stressful, and traumatic experiences. Dissociative experiences can also result from episodes of drug-induced psychosis or substance withdraw.

 

Dissociation can involve feeling detached from one’s body, thoughts, emotions, memories, surroundings, or aspects of one’s identity. Symptoms can range from mild temporary experiences, to severe long-lasting experiences such as found in dissociative disorders. Sometimes symptoms are obvious and other times people are unaware that what they are experiencing is dissociation. Often when people talk about dissociation, they are referring to feeling detached from one’s body, but this is only one way symptoms can manifest. Dissociation is an umbrella term that can be broken down into three main categories: 

  • Depersonalization: feeling disconnected or detached from one's body, including feeling numb, observing oneself from outside of one’s body, or the feeling that one’s body is not their own. 

  • Derealization: feeling detached from one's surroundings, or feeling as if one’s environment is foreign, unreal, distorted or distant, as if in a dream.  

  • Structural Dissociation: the fragmentation of the personality into “parts” that serve important functions, such as helping a person cope with intense emotions or forget stressful and traumatic memories. Depending on the theoretical understanding, the presence of parts can be considered a normal, healthy experience (such as described by Internal Family Systems), or it can be an indication that an integrated sense of self was unable to form due to childhood developmental trauma or a lack of secure attachment (such as described by the Theory of Structural Dissociation). Symptoms of structural dissociation range widely from relatively mild, such as having flashbacks to a traumatic event, to moderate, such as having a part that blocks emotions or memories, to severe, such as having no memory of buying new clothes or cutting your own hair but finding evidence that you've done this. The most severe presentation of structural dissociation is found in Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder), which can include a wide range of symptoms, such as gaps in memory, spending hours a day "zoning out" in a trance state, disremembered behaviours, intrusive thoughts or emotions that feel like "not me", and finding yourself in a place with no memory of how you got there.

 

Have you experienced any of these symptoms? While dissociation is an understandable and often an adaptive response to overwhelming or traumatic experiences, symptoms can be disturbing and disorienting. If symptoms of dissociation cause you distress or interfere with your daily functioning, it’s important to seek mental health support from a therapist with specialized training in treating dissociative symptoms. Somatic therapy, Internal Family Systems and modified EMDR can be helpful in treating dissociation, depending on the type and severity of symptoms and the client’s goals. Our therapists are trained to screen for dissociative disorders prior to administering EMDR. If you're looking for a therapist with experience in treating dissociative symptoms, contact our Clinical Coordinator to get matched with the right therapist on our team.



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