DEFINITION

• The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) lists the defining feature of dissociative amnesia as inability to recall important autobiograpical information, typically of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is inconsistent with ordinary forgetting. Subtypes include:[1]
  • Localized amnesia (the most common form): failure to recall events during a circumscribed period of time
  • Selective amnesia: can recall some, but not all parts of a circumscribed period of time or traumatic event
  • Systematized amnesia: loss of memory for a specific category of information
  • Continuous amnesia: loss of memory for each new event as it occurs
  • Generalized amnesia (rare): acute onset of complete loss of memory for one’s life history
  • Loss of semantic knowledge, procedural knowledge, and personal identity may also occur.

• Dissociative amnesia is characterized by an apparent disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.
• May overlap with dissociative fugue, which is seemingly purposeful travel or bewildered wandering that is associated with autobiographical amnesia
• Previously called psychogenic amnesia, this is a controversial diagnostic entity that incorporates elements of psychogenic fugue states, repressed memory, traumatic amnesia, and functional neurological symptom disorder (conversion disorder). The concept of repressed memory remains debated, with scientific studies often being interpreted as supportive of both sides of the argument.[2]
• Some authors feel this disorder is more common in combat veterans, sexual assault victims, and extreme emotional stress or conflict, while others see this as a disorder of vulnerable individuals with comorbid psychiatric conditions, problematic life circumstances, and/or personality vulnerabilities.
• It currently is classified under the Dissociative Disorders section of the DSM-5. Controversy exists whether dissociative amnesia should be conceptualized as a dissociative disorder or included in the symptom clusters for PTSD and acute stress disorder given its relationship to trauma[3].