Short description:

This second edition of the award-winning original text brings together in one volume the current thinking and conceptualizations on dissociation and the dissociative disorders.

Long description:

This second edition of the award-winning original text brings together in one volume the current thinking and conceptualizations on dissociation and the dissociative disorders. Comprised of ten parts, starting with historical and conceptual issues, and ending with considerations for the present and future, internationally renowned authors in the trauma and dissociation fields explore different facets of dissociation in pathological and non-clinical guises. This book is designed to be the most comprehensive reference book in the dissociation field and aims to provide a scholarly foundation for understanding dissociation, dissociative disorders, current issues and perspectives within the field, theoretical formulations, and empirical findings. Chapters have been thoroughly updated to include recent developments in the field, including: the complex nature of conceptualization, etiology, and neurobiology; the various manifestations of dissociation in clinical and non-clinical forms; and different perspectives on how dissociation should be understood.

This book is essential for clinicians, researchers, theoreticians, students of clinical psychology psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and those with an interest or curiosity in dissociation in the various ways it can be conceived and studied.

An excellent successor to the 2009 standard work edited by Dell and O?Neil, this book is again the most complete and up-to-date source of the burgeoning theory, research and clinical practice of dissociation and the dissociative disorders. Diverging perspectives on the construct of dissociation collected together in one volume provide both an invitation for reflection and a foundation to stimulate further development in theory and clinical practice. With valuable contributions from leaders in the field, it is an absolute must for clinicians, researchers, and students interested in trauma and dissociation.

Suzette Boon, PhD, co-author of Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation and Treatment of Trauma-related Dissociation and author of Assessment of Trauma-related Dissociation

Leading voices in the trauma field, Drs. Dorahy, Gold, and O?Neil have created a wonderful and extremely comprehensive review of dissociation and dissociative disorders for clinicians and researchers. This updated and expanded 2^nd?edition consists of 49 chapters, all written by noted authorities, covering historical and conceptual issues, etiology, phenomenology, neurobiology, assessment, and multiple approaches to treatment. Notably, it unflinchingly articulates the major controversies and unresolved issues in the dissociation field and provides evenhanded synthesis and context whenever possible. Currently the most comprehensive and definitive work in the field, this book is a must-have for anyone studying or treating dissociation. Highly recommended.

John Briere, PhD, Professor Emeritus of?Psychiatry & the?Behavioral Sciences
Keck - University of Southern?California School of Medicine. Author of?Treating risky and compulsive behavior in trauma survivors.?NY: Guilford, 2019.

Dorahy, Gold and O?Neil have mastered the art of "herding cats" in editing an extraordinarily diverse and deeply incisive collection of erudite and wise explorations of dissociative processes, those ubiquitous discontinuities, detachments, compartmentalizations, and disruptions of human relatedness, mental coherence, subjective sense of self, and neurobiological processes that skew experience as if they had a mind of their own. It's not just an exploration of depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, identity confusion and identity alteration; but, rather, it's a deep-dive into what makes this dissociative world of what is strangely familiar go round and round, and then some. This is a must read volume that will both challenge and entertain you as a fellow explorer in the land of that which is dissociative. There is something for everyone here, and nearly everything a serious clinician might want to understand as we try and help the people who struggle with complex phenomena and experience that hide in plain sight. Get it, read it, and ponder it. You will be enriched by your efforts and those of the authors and editors who have poured their hearts into this extraordinary work.

Richard A. Chefetz, M.D., Private Practice, Washington, D.C., Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis;??Intensive psychotherapy for persistent dissociative processes: The fear of feeling real. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015.?

This revision of Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders closely follows the tradition set by the original. The editors have done a masterful job producing an updated volume primarily devoted to the conceptual/theoretical advances about dissociation and its various expressions and disorders, written by identified experts in the field. The editors note that, at present, the understanding of the underlying principle of dissociation remains unclear and subject to debate among the chapter authors, some of whom hold very discrepant and even incompatible viewpoints. However, it is their hope and the promise of this book that the viewpoints they espouse and the advances they present consolidate in the future to ascertain that elusive underlying principle that may well be multi-factorial and multi-theoretical.

Christine A. Courtois, PhD, ABPP, author, Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy (1988; 2010), co-author, Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders (2013), co-editor, The Treatment of Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders (2012; 2020)

This second edition is an edifying contribution to the field of psychology of trauma and dissociation that has now been updated. The strength of the book lies in its rich tapestry of chapters written by world experts echoing polyvocal ideas from divergent perspectives, using empirical evidence and theoretical developments. The multiple perspectives, whilst all connected, each carry their own distinct voice. Growth is stifled whenever absolutes are made and this book outlines the complexity and comprehensibility of dissociation as examined from different vantage points. The book is inspiring to teachers and students alike and is most welcome to practitioners of all psychological disciplines. ?

Orit Badouk Epstein, Attachment based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Editor and Writer, John Bowlby Centre, London.

Table of Contents:

1.History of the Concept of Dissociation

2.The Conceptual Unity of Dissociation ? A Philosophical Argument

3.The Traumatic Disintegration Dimension

4.Dissociation Versus Alterations in Consciousness: Related but Different Concepts

5.The Case for the Study of "Normal" Dissociation Processes

6.Dissociation and Resilience

7.Adaptive Dissociation: A Response to Interpersonal, Institutional, and Cultural Betrayal

8.Dissociative Multiplicity and Psychoanalysis

9.A Developmental Pathways Model of Dissociation

10.The Relationship Between Attachment and Dissociation: Theory, Research, and Clinical implications

11.Attachment Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: Origins of Pathological Dissociation and Some Implications for psychotherapy

12.Adverse Childhood Experiences and Dissociative Disorders: A Causal Pathway Based on the Disruptive Impacts of Cumulative Childhood Adversity and Distress-Related Dissociation

13.Beyond Death: Enduring Incest ? The Fusion of Father With Daughter

14.Clarifying the Etiology of the Dissociative Disorders: It?s Not All About Trauma

15.The Theory of Trauma-related Structural Dissociation of the Personality

16.Discrete Behavioral State Theory

17.The Perceptual Theory of Dissociation

18.Contextual Dissociation Theory: The Dual Impact of Trauma and Developmental Deprivation

19.The Four-Dimensional (4D) Model as a Framework for Understanding Trauma-Related Dissociation

20.Dissociation and Unformulated Experience: A Psychoanalytic Model of Mind

21.Dissociation in the ICDs and DSMs

22.Dissociative Amnesia and Dissociative Fugue

23.Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder

24.A Grounded Theory of Dissociative Identity disorder: Placing DID in Mind, Brain, and Body

25.Psychotic Presentations of Dissociative Disorders

26.The Other in the Self: Possession, Trance, and Related Phenomena

27.Dissociative Disorders in Children and Adolescents

28.Peritraumatic Dissociation and Chronic Posttraumatic Symptomatology: Thirty Years and Counting

29.Dissociation and Trauma: Clinical and Research Intersections in PTSD

30.Complex PTSD and Emotion Dysregulation: The Role of Dissociation

31.Is Dissociation an Integral Aspect of Borderline Personality Disorder, or is it a Comorbid Disorder?

32.The Nature of Psychotic Symptoms: Traumatic in Origin and Dissociative in Kind?

33.Somatoform Dissociation, Agency and Consciousness

34.Maladaptive Daydreaming is a Dissociative Disorder: Supporting Evidence and Theory

35.Opioid Misuse and Dissociation: Two Powerful Modes of Distress Regulation

36.Dissociative Factors Contributing to Violence and Antisocial Orientations

37.The Defense Cascade, Traumatic Dissociation and the Self: A Neuroscientific Model

38.Towards an Ecology of Dissociation in the Context of Trauma: Implications for the Psychobiological Study of Dissociative Disorders

39.The Neurobiology of Dissociation in Chronic PTSD

40.Subjective Amnesia in Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Dual Path Model Drawing on Metacognitive Beliefs Related to Self and Memory Functioning

41.Diagnosing the Dissociative Disorders: Conceptual, Theoretical, and Practical Considerations

42.True Drama or True Trauma? Forensic Trauma Assessment and the Challenge of Detecting Malingering

43.Encountering the Singularities of Multiplicity: Meeting and Treating the Unique Person

44.Controversies in the Treatment of Traumatic Dissociation:The Phased Model, ?Exposure,? and the Challenges of Therapy for Complex Trauma

45.The Unconscionable in the Unconscious: The Evolution of Relationality in the Conceptualization of the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation

46.Memory, Trauma and the Therapeutic Encounter

47.Conceptual Foundations for Long-Term Psychotherapy of Dissociative Identity Disorder

48.A Research Agenda for the Dissociative Disorders Field

49.Integrating Dissociation