Emotional Healing Series - Part 1F for October 29, 2012

[Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks, PsyD]

Emotional Healing Through Dealing with Past Issues – Part 1F (click here for PDF version)

October 29, 2012

 

NOTE: REMEMBER, as previously stated, this series was written on October 1st and God has delivered me since then; I wrote it as it was given to me at that time!

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Patients with acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or conversion disorder and somatization disorder may develop dissociative symptoms. Recent studies of trauma indicate that the human brain stores traumatic memories in a different way than normal memories. Traumatic memories are not processed or integrated into a person's ongoing life in the same fashion as normal memories. Instead they are dissociated, or "split off," and may erupt into consciousness from time to time without warning. The affected person cannot control or "edit" these memories. Over a period of time, these two sets of memories, the normal and the traumatic, may coexist as parallel sets without being combined or blended. In extreme cases, different sets of dissociated memories may alter subpersonalities of patients with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder).”

This is what the medical dictionary’s web site says about the causes and symptoms of Dissociative Disorders:

“The moderate to severe dissociation that occurs in patients with dissociative disorders is understood to  result from a set of causes:

• an innate ability to dissociate easily
• repeated episodes of severe physical or sexual abuse in childhood
• the lack of a supportive or comforting person to counteract abusive relative(s)
• the influence of other relatives with dissociative symptoms or disorders

The relationship of dissociative disorders to childhood abuse has led to intense controversy and lawsuits concerning the accuracy of childhood memories. The brain's storage, retrieval, and interpretation of memories are still not fully understood. Controversy also exists regarding how much individuals presenting dissociative disorders have been influenced by books and movies to describe a certain set of symptoms (scripting).

The major dissociative symptoms are:

Amnesia

Amnesia in a dissociative disorder is marked by gaps in a patient's memory for long periods of time or for traumatic events. Doctors can distinguish this type of amnesia from loss of memory caused by head injuries or drug intoxication, because the amnesia is "spotty" and related to highly charged events and feelings. 

Depersonalization

Depersonalization is a dissociative symptom in which the patient feels that his or her body is unreal, is changing, or is dissolving. Some patients experience depersonalization as being outside their bodies or watching a movie of themselves.

 

Emotional Healing Series - Part 1G will be posted by October 30, 2012

God's Servant,

Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks