Dissociative disorder (amnesia) is a mental disorder in which the patient forgets some events from his life partially or completely. There are two types of disease. This is partial amnesia - with it, selective memories are lost and spatial characteristics are violated. Complete amnesia is the loss of all memories at any time. If we take into account the period, it can be retarded — all memories disappear for a long period of time after memory loss, and antiterrodog — it is combined with retrograde amnesia.
What is it and how to treat it?
Dissociative amnesia is a partial memory loss associated with a stressful situation. The disease proceeds severely, causing anxiety in a sick person, due to a partial loss of connection with the outside world, and a lack of understanding of where reality ends and oblivion begins. Amnesia is manifested by a mental disorder, most often in children who have experienced severe mental pressure from adults or other children.
In adulthood, stress, lack of sleep, conflict, etc. are added to the unstable psyche. The brain begins to block negative information, as if protecting the body from overstrain, and people are immersed in the void.
Complications arising during the course of the disease can cause depression, anxiety, self-aggression, go into the obsessive form of suicidal attempts and force a person to commit suicide. Psychiatrists are trying to treat the disease with hypnosis and sedatives based on medicinal plants (herbal medicine).
Causes
The main causes of dissociative amnesia include various types of emotional and psychological trauma of a personal nature.
Typically, such a reaction occurs, for example, in an accident, loss of loved ones, rape by close relatives. According to statistics, it is precisely those who in childhood experienced severe emotional injuries, such as killing parents, in front of a child, other crimes, more often in an adult state experience a state of dissociative amnesia. The children's psyche often cannot cope with the worries about what they saw, and prefers to forget everything, to erase the memories. And, as you know, there are no memories - no problems.
One of the problems of this state is that, forgetting the tragic events, a person often forgets and all the others - what is his name, where he is, and so on. The second problem may be that such states sometimes begin to recur in cases where some traumatic event occurs, and this may become the rule. This leads not only to mental trauma, but also to accidents.
Unlike ordinary amnesia, the dissociative causes, symptoms, and treatment have slightly different ones. Timely consultation with a specialist will help in the fight against the disease.
Symptoms
Most often, the development of symptoms is facilitated by the reaction of the human brain to traumatic events in human life. Due to the effects of stress on the body, symptoms begin to intensify. There are several symptoms of the disease dissociative amnesia:
- A person loses memory for a certain point in time. He may not remember what happened to him.
- He cannot recognize his friends and relatives.
- Amnesia usually lasts hours, minutes, but rarely months.
- The psyche begins to be disturbed. Sometimes dangerous thoughts come to mind.
- Sometimes the patient may not recognize himself. Even if he sees his face, he cannot remember who it is.
- Such people cease to feel like a person.
- Things and people seem extraneous and unreal.
- Often there are problems with work and in personal life.
- Severe headaches may begin.
- Alcoholism and substance abuse appear.
- A person becomes aggressive or tries to commit suicide.
- Sleep is disturbed, depression appears. Sleep disturbance leads to insomnia and sleepwalking.
- There is sexual dysfunction.
- Anxious condition.
Diagnostics
The diagnosis of dissociative disorder is made by the doctor based on the analysis of the patient’s personal history, as well as in the presence of three or more symptoms of the disease. To diagnose dissociative disorder, research is required to identify the following diseases and problems of the patient:
- intoxication of the body;
- head injuries;
- sleep disturbances;
- brain diseases.
It is necessary to exclude everything that can cause similar symptoms and affect the development of the disease. In the absence of physical reasons, the diagnosis is made by a specialist with a narrower focus, most often a psychiatrist.
Stages of determining the disease
Stages of establishing dissociative amnesia:
- Assessment of the mental state of the patient. The orientation in time and space should be maintained. There is a slight slowdown in thinking and difficulty when trying to reproduce events from the past, however, the patient remembers the current events without difficulty.
- Identification of symptoms indicating a mental disorder. The patient seeks to mask the true cause of the disease under the guise of amnesia, avoids frankness.
- Patients are characterized by unexpressed thoughts of suicide; vigilance is necessary in relation to this moment.
- Some groups of patients are most susceptible to the occurrence of the disease, among them children who have been abused, war veterans, people who have survived the effects of natural disasters.
It is important to find the right way to help a person with dissociative amnesia, otherwise the consequences can be severe.
Drug therapy
Although there are no medications intentionally used to treat symptoms of dissociative amnesia, a doctor may prescribe:
- Antidepressants, namely, Cipralex, Deprim, Melipramin.
- Antipsychotic drugs: Invega, Olanzapine, Paliperidone.
- Medications that improve cerebral circulation, and vitamins: Piracetam, Glycine, hopantenic acid.
Phytotherapy
You can try different soothing herbs. These include:
- Valerian root - relieves nervous tension and helps to fall asleep.
- Hop - helps to relax.
- Schisandra - relieves anxiety.
- Ginseng root - improves concentration and memory (increases the biosynthesis of neurotransmitters (conductors) in the brain), adds vitality, increases stress resistance and immunity, has antioxidant properties.
- St. John's wort - contains flavonoids, flavonol and rutin, vitamins A and C. Recommended for simple pathologies of memory and depression, as well as for insomnia or migraine.
Herbal medicine is a treatment method for medicinal herbs that can be used in tablets, tinctures, extracts, and even in fresh or dried form. Modern medicine does not deny herbal treatment, but does not recognize the method as effective. Therefore, herbs give up their beneficial substances, and chemicals supplement, making the effect more significant and productively affect the treatment.
Psychotherapy
For the treatment of dissociative amnesia, a set of measures is important, including a calm environment, hypnosis. An important role is played by psychotherapy. Since it does not require introducing the patient into a special condition, it can be carried out regularly, including several times a day.
Psychotherapy of such patients should be carried out so that they gradually recall all the events that occurred in life, with the exception of traumatic ones. The period of traumatic events must be approached very carefully. It is important that the doctor better than the patient understands the cause of the internal conflict that caused amnesia, and mentally forms such an attitude to events that would not traumatize the patient's psyche.
To do this, the doctor must find out how the patient reacts to certain conflict situations, what emotions he experiences. This allows you to form a more correct response of the patient to traumatic situations. Many, for example, blame themselves when others act badly. It should be clarified that the mental problems of others are their troubles, not yours. Your task is to act in the name of your interests, without blaming yourself for someone else's imperfection, or deviation from the ideal. The desire for ideal in relationships, high demands on others and oneself, are often the cause of psychological trauma and conflict. Including dissociative amnesia. It should return the patient to a real assessment of themselves and others.
Therapies
Methods used in the psychotherapy of dissociative amnesia:
- Hypnosis will undoubtedly help renew memories, identify traumatic events that have a great influence on the development of amnesia. This is a long and laborious work, however, it is this aspect in therapy that is more effective. Hypnosis forms a position of deepest relaxation and calms the mind. The state of hypnosis makes it possible to better concentrate on a specific thought, to activate memory, emotions, and memories will not be blocked.
- Creative art therapy. The patient is involved in the creative process. This can help people who have problems formulating their own ideas and emotions. Art helps to recognize oneself, to cope with signs of traumatic experience and to promote positive changes. Creative art therapy includes art, dance and movement, theater, music and poetry.
Prevention
The ideal prevention of dissociative amnesia is the absence of severe stresses that negatively affect the psyche of children. Since this is not always possible, one should be attentive to the mental state of children, asking them about problems at school and in the yard. It is also important to set the offspring to the correct perception of the world, so that they avoid unnecessary maximalism in the requirements for others. It is necessary to clarify that only in the diversity of people and characters, the value of the human community.
So, to demand that everyone behave the way you want is wrong. It is also important to explain that competition among people is a blessing if it does not take on painful forms.