Possible Causes

Normal dissociation is often differentiated from pathological dissociation.

Normal dissociation can be an adaptive way to handle a traumatic incident.

It is commonly seen as a reaction to war and civil disasters. In normal dissociation,

the person’s perception of the traumatic experience is temporarily

dulled or removed from the conscious mind. Pathological dissociation is an

extreme reaction of splitting the anxiety-provoking situation from consciousness.

There exist a limited number of research studies that seek to explain the

causes of dissociation in certain individuals and predict what persons are

vulnerable to the development of dissociative amnesia or fugue during periods

of trauma or overwhelming stress. The psychodynamic explanation

emphasizes the use of repression as a defense against conscious awareness of

the stressful or traumatic event. Entire chunks of the person’s identity or

past experiences are split from the conscious mind as a way to avoid painful

memories or conflicts. According to this explanation, some individuals are

vulnerable to the use of dissociation because of their early childhood experiences

of trauma or abuse. With the early experience of abuse, the child

learns to repress the memories or engage in a process of self-hypnosis. The

hypnotic state permits the child to escape the stress associated with the

abuse or neglect. The abused child feels a sense of powerlessness in the face

of repeated abuse and splits from this conscious awareness. This isolation of

the stressful event leads to the development of different memory processes

from those found in normal child development.

A behavioral explanation for the likely development of dissociation as a

means to cope with stressful events focuses on the rewarding aspects of

dissociative symptoms. The child learns to role-play and engage in selective

attention to recognize certain environmental cues that provide rewards.

Stressful circumstances are blocked out and disturbing thoughts ignored.

Eventually, this process expands into a tendency to assume new roles and

block out stressful situations.

The dissociative disorders appear to be influenced by sociocultural factors

which are dependent upon social attitudes and cultural norms. Acceptance

and toleration of the symptoms associated with dissociative disorders

depend upon prevailing societal attitudes. Over time, cultures vary in the ac

ceptance of dissociative symptoms and the manifestation of amnesia and

ceptance of dissociative symptoms and the manifestation of amnesia and

fugue states. For example, historical reports of spirit possession can be interpreted

as the experience of a fugue state.