Dissociative Disorder: Dissociative Fugue

In possession trance, the person reacts to the traumatic event by entering a dissociative state in which her identity is replaced by that of another person, animal, or inanimate object, or, more commonly, by a ghost, spirit, or deity.

In many cultures, certain form...

The basic form of dissociation is called isolation of affect. This involves a dissociation of thoughts and feelings, with the feelings (the affect) then removed from conscious attention

Isolation of affect is very common. Other forms of dissociation, while much more dramatic, are correspondingly less common. They are usually precipitated by an intensely traumatic event, leadi...

Isolation of affect is probably most apparent when someone refers to an emotionally loaded event or situation in a casual, matter-of-fact, or otherwise dispassionate way. This can be called for in certain circumstances, for example, in providing the distance and objectivity that ...

Denial is, of course, an important component of any dissociative disorder. Although commonly described as a ‘compar...

In psychoanalytic theory, ego defenses are unconscious processes that we deploy to diffuse the fear and anxiety that arise when who we think we are or who we think we should be (our conscious ‘superego’) comes into conflict with who we really are (our unconscious ‘id’).

In dissociative stupor, the person reacts to the traumatic event by becoming immobile and mute, failing to respond to stimuli such as the human voice, bright lights, or extremes of hot and cold.

Dissociative stupor—that is, stupor as a reaction to a trauma...

It should be borne in mind that, just like dissociative fugue, revenge and fame can also be construed as ego defenses.

Agatha Christie, the world’s most famous mystery writer, pulled a, now, famous vanishing act. On a cold December night in 1926, she went out in her belove...

Agatha never discussed this perplexing episode and also excluded it from her biography. Perhaps she contrived it as an act of revenge, maybe even as a publicity stunt, but a dissociative fugue is an equally likely explanation and also the one upheld by her then doctors.