Assessment | Biopsychology | Comparative | Cognitive | Developmental | Language
Personality | Philosophy | Methods | Social | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial

Clinical: Approaches · Group therapy · Techniques · Types of problem · Areas of specialism · Taxonomies · Therapeutic issues · Modes of delivery · Model translation project · Personal experiences ·

---

.

Dissociative amnesia or functional amnesia, is a form of amnesia where there is an inability to recall information, usually about stressful or traumatic events in persons' lives, such as a violent attack or rape. The memory is stored in long term memory, but access to it is impaired because of psychological defense mechanisms. Persons retain the capacity to learn new information and there may be some later partial or complete recovery of memory.

This contrasts with e.g. anterograde amnesia caused by amnestics such as benzodiazepines or alcohol, where an experience was prevented from being transferred from temporary to permanent memory storage: it will never be recovered, because it was never stored in the first instance.

Dissociative amnesia is a dissociative psychiatric disorder that involves alterations in consciousness and identity. Its presentation varies considerably from individual to individual, but in most cases functional amnesia is preceded by physical or emotional trauma and occurs in association with some prior psychiatric history (Kritchevsky et al., 2004). Often, the patient is admitted to the hospital in a confused or frightened state. Memory for the past is lost, especially autobiographical memory and even personal identity. Semantic or factual information about the world is often preserved, though factual information about the patient’s life may be unavailable. Despite profound impairment in the ability to recall information about the past, the ability to learn new information is usually intact. The disorder sometimes clears and the lost memories return. Sometimes, the disorder lasts longer, and sizable pieces of the past remain unavailable.

In the usual process the pairing of emotion with an event seems to strengthen memory, so in dissociative amnesia other processes must be at work.

Contents 1 See also 2 Definition 3 Description 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 Key Texts – Books 7 Additional material – Books 8 Key Texts – Papers 9 Additional material - Papers 10 External links

See alsoEdit

• Dissociative fugue
• False memory syndrome
• Repressed memory

DefinitionEdit

DescriptionEdit

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - History of the disorder.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Theoretical approaches.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Epidemiology.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Risk factors.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Etiology.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Diagnosis & evaluation.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Comorbidity.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Treatment.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Prognosis.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Service user page.

Main article: Dissociative amnesia - Carer page.

 : Risk factors

• Dissociative amnesia: known evidence of risk factors
• Dissociative amnesia: theories of possible risk factors

 : Etiology

• Dissociative amnesia: known evidence of causes
• Dissociative amnesia: theories of possible causes

 : Diagnosis & evaluation

• Dissociative amnesia: psychological tests
• Dissociative amnesia: differential diagnosis
• Dissociative amnesia: evaluation protocols

 : Treatment

• outcome studies
• Dissociative amnesia: treatment protocols
• Dissociative amnesia: treatment considerations
• Dissociative amnesia: evidenced based treatment
• Dissociative amnesia: theory based treatment
• Dissociative amnesia: team working considerations
• Dissociative amnesia: followup

 : For people with this difficulty

• Dissociative amnesia: user:how to get help
• Dissociative amnesia: user:self help materials
• Dissociative amnesia: user:useful reading
• Dissociative amnesia: user:useful websites

 : For their carers

• Dissociative amnesia: carer:how to get help
• Dissociative amnesia: carer:useful reading
• Dissociative amnesia: carer:useful websites

 : For the practitioner

• Dissociative amnesia: practitioner:further reading
• Dissociative amnesia: practioner:useful websites

See alsoEdit

• Repressed memory
• Emotion and memory
• Post-traumatic stress disorder

BibliographyEdit

Key Texts – BooksEdit

Additional material – BooksEdit

Key Texts – PapersEdit

Additional material - PapersEdit

External linksEdit

Instructions_for_archiving_academic_and_professional_materials

Dissociative amnesia: Academic support materials

• Dissociative amnesia: Lecture slides
• Dissociative amnesia: Lecture notes
• Dissociative amnesia: Lecture handouts
• Dissociative amnesia: Multimedia materials
• Dissociative amnesia: Other academic support materials
• Dissociative amnesia: Anonymous fictional case studies for training

---

This box: view • talk • edit

Memory
Types of memory
Auditory memory | Autobiographical memory | Collective memory | Early memories | Echoic Memory | Eidetic memory | Episodic memory | Explicit memory  |Exosomatic memory | False memory |Flashbulb memory | Iconic memory | Implicit memory | Institutional memory | Long term memory | Procedural memory | Prospective memory | Repressed memory | Retrospective memory | Semantic memory | Sensory memory | Short term memory | Spatial memory | State-dependent memory | Tonal memory | Transactive memory  | Verbal memory  | Visual memory  | Visuospatial memory  | Working memory  |
Aspects of memory
Childhood amnesia | Cryptomnesia |Cued recall | Eye-witness testimony | Memory and emotion | Forgetting |Forgetting curve | Free recall | Levels-of-processing effect | Memory consolidation |Memory decay | Memory distrust syndrome |Memory inhibition | Memory and smell | Memory loss | Memory optimization | Memory trace | Mnemonic | Memory biases  | Tip of the tongue | Lethologica | Memory loss |Priming | Primacy effect | Reconstruction | Proactive interference | Prompting | Recency effect | Recall (learning) | Recognition (learning) | Reminiscence | Retention | Retroactive interference | Serial position effect | Serial recall | Source amnesia |
Memory theory
Atkinson-Shiffrin | Baddeley | CLARION | Decay theory | Dual-coding theory | Interference theory |Memory consolidation | Memory encoding | Memory-prediction framework | Forgetting | Recall | Recognition |
Mnemonics
Method of loci | Mnemonic room system | Mnemonic dominic system | Mnemonic link system |Mnemonic major system | Mnemonic peg system | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Neuroanatomy of memory
Amygdala | Hippocampus | prefrontal cortex  | Neurobiology of working memory | Neurophysiology of memory | Rhinal cortex | [[]] |[[]] |
Neurochemistry of memory
Glutamatergic system  | of short term memory | [[]] |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Developmental aspects of memory
Prenatal memory | |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |
Memory in clinical settings
Alcohol amnestic disorder | Amnesia | Dissociative fugue | False memory syndrome | False memory | Hyperthymesia | Memory and aging | Memory disorders | Repressed memory | Traumatic memory |
Retention measures
Benton | CAMPROMPT | Implicit memory testing | Indirect tests of memory | MAS | Memory tests for children | MERMER | Rey-15 | Rivermead | TOMM | Wechsler | WMT | WRAML2 |
Treating memory problems
CBT | EMDR | Psychotherapy | Recovered memory therapy |Reminiscence therapy | Memory clinic | Memory training | Rewind technique |
Prominant workers in memory|-
Baddeley | Broadbent |Ebbinghaus  | Kandel |McGaugh | Schacter  | Treisman | Tulving  |
Philosophy and historical views of memory
Aristotle | [[]] |[[]] |[[]] |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |
Miscellaneous
Journals | Learning, Memory, and Cognition |Journal of Memory and Language |Memory |Memory and Cognition | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |

This page uses content from the English-language version of Scholarpedia. The original article was at Amnesia. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, this text from Scholarpedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.