CHAPTER  7

Somatoform and Dissociative Disorders

This chapter contains a detailed description of the clinical picture, causal pattern, and treatment of somatoform and dissociative disorders. In the somatoform disorders the central presenting problem is physical complaints or physical disabilities in the absence of any physical pathology, presumably reflecting underlying psychological difficulties. In the dissociative disorders the central problem is a failure of certain aspects of memory due to an active process of dissociation, such as in dissociative amnesia in which individuals cannot remember their names, do not know how old they are or where they live, etc. According to the text, both types of disorders appear to be ways of avoiding psychological stress while denying personal responsibility for doing so. There are suggestions, as well, that both may be associated with traumatic childhood experiences. Whereas our personal experience with anxiety and depression in everyday life aids our understanding of the extreme deviations of these emotions discussed in the last two chapters, the disorders examined in this chapter will likely seem less familiar and less readily grasped as exaggerated forms of everyday psychological phenomena.

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