Mental Dissociation Research Articles

Rapid onset brain plasticity at novel pharmacologic targets hypothetically drives innovations for rapid onset antidepressant actions.

Numerous new agents with rapid onset antidepressant effects are entering clinical trials and clinical practice. Studies focus on either first-line treatment of major depressive disorder or on patients whose major depressive disorder is resistant to prior antidepressant drugs. Novel agents target three very different central nervous system sites: as antagonists of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors, as positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) A neurosteroid and benzodiazepine receptor sites, and as psychedelic agonists of serotonin 2A/2C receptors. Onset of antidepressant action is rapid, sometimes after only one dose whereas traditional agents for depression take several days to weeks to have an antidepressant effect. Although the direct molecular targets of these three classes of agents with rapid antidepressant onset are quite diverse and not clearly related to each other, analysis of the downstream effects of all these agents show that all are "plastogens," namely agents that trigger rapid onset of neuroplasticity that correlates with their rapid onset of antidepressant clinical action. The GABA A PAMs and some of the NMDA antagonists induce neuroplasticity without notable changes in mental status and can be designated "neuroplastogens." Some NMDA antagonists cause mental dissociation, and the psychedelics cause psychotomimetic/hallucinatory experiences and can be designated "psychoplastogens." A great debate exists whether psychoplastogens are effective because of their ability to acutely alter mental state, or whether these acute mental states are unwanted behavioral toxicity. The promise of numerous novel agents with rapid acting antidepressant action and neuroplasticity is set to transform the treatment of major depressive disorder.

A Mixture Modeling of the Predictors of Internet Addiction: Cognition and Dissociation.

This study aimed to explore the heterogeneity in the symptoms of pathological Internet use. The predictive role of online cognitions and online dissociative experiences on pathological Internet use were investigated. Three hundred and ninety Turkish undergraduate students (261 females) participated in the study. Latent class analysis (LCA) was performed. Items responses on the 26-item Chen Internet Addiction Scale were subjected to LCA. The LCA identified three latent classes: (1) Normal Internet Users (n = 141, 36.15%), (2) Problematic Internet Users (n = 148, 37.95%), and (3) Pathological Internet Users (n = 101, 25.90%). The multinomial regression analysis showed that online cognitions, anxious arousal, and online dissociation were significantly associated with pathological Internet use. Our findings showed that the online dissociation as measured by the Van Online Dissociative Experiences Schedule and mental dissociation as indexed by the Dissociative Experiences Scale are qualitatively different constructs in relation to addictive behaviors on the net. Online dissociation and online cognitions seem to be crucial vulnerability factors for pathological Internet use.

Ictal level of awareness in psychogenic nonepileptic seizures correlates with the experience of traumatic events in childhood: A cross sectional study

There is a great amount of research regarding the particular ictal manifestations of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) with a focus on the differences to epileptic seizures (Vogrig et al., 2019 [4]; Tyson et al., 2018 [5]; De Paola et al., 2016 [6]). Most of the research aims to define guidelines for diagnosing PNES in differentiation from epilepsy, because this differentiation is clinically relevant for clinical neurological settings. In contrast, very few studies aimed to gain insight about particular ictal manifestations of the different semiological appearances of PNES regarding distinctive psychological processes or prognostic outcomes (Brown, 2016 [7]; Pick et al., 2017 [8]; Brown, 2006 [9]; Cohen, 2013). One study revealed that a higher level of mental dissociation and cognitive impairment was associated with a higher level of traumatization in patients with PNES (Pick et al., 2017 [8]).We analyzed the seizure semiology with a focus on the level of awareness in 60 patients with PNES. Patients were divided into two groups: one with an impaired awareness during their seizures and the other one with preserved awareness during their seizures. We assessed the amount of adverse traumatic experience in childhood with the “Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ)”.We found that patients with PNES with impaired awareness showed more childhood traumatic experiences in the CTQ, especially on the subscales of sexual and emotional abuse as well as physical neglect. Furthermore, patients with PNES with impaired awareness during seizures were significantly younger, more often female, showed a lower degree on education, and a higher amount of self-harm behavior compared with patients with PNES with preserved awareness during seizures.Our study presents clinical evidence for the potential significance of the level of awareness during PNES for the etiology of PNES. Our results point toward the existence of clinical subgroups of patients with PNES with distinctive etiological mechanisms and indicate that seizure semiology might help to differentiate those potential subgroups.

The underlying dimensions of DSM-5 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their relationships with mental and somatoform dissociation, depression and anxiety among jail inmates

ABSTRACT In this study we examined the DSM-5 factor structure of scores on the Turkish version of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Checklist for DSM–5 (PCL-5) and predictors of PTSD caseness in a sample of male prisoners. The 7-factor hybrid model was the optimal model relative to the alternatives. Consistent with the PTSD literature in prisoners, the majority of respondents had past traumatic experiences (96.7%), a probable PTSD diagnosis (68.4%), pathological dissociation (46.8%) and somatoform dissociation (52.3%). Probable PTSD caseness was significantly associated with dissociation and depression, as well as higher levels of education and being married. Re-experiencing was strongly associated with mental and somatic dissociation; whereas dysphoric arousal was related to depression and anxiety.

Paranoid Schizophrenia - Clinical and Therapeutic Correlations

Schizophrenia is a serious psychosis that appears in young adult, usually chronic, characterised by signs of mental dissociation and incoherent delirious activity that determines the breaking of the contact with the exterior world. The primary objective of this study is to compare the efficiency of Haloperidol and Risperidone. The study consisted in enrolling, evaluating and the clinical and therapeutic following of 125 patients hospitalised at the Clinic Hospital of Psychiatry..., in Galai, between 2000 and 2015. They were divided into 4 equal sub-lots according to the medication received. The modern treatment consists in the administration of atypical neuroleptics, such as: Risperidone, Olanzapine, Clozapine, etc. These substances proved their efficiency in the negative and affective symptoms together with the increase of therapeutic compliance due to the absent secondary effects. The precocious diagnostic, the modern anti-psychotic treatment from its first manifestations and maintained in order to avoid relapse, improve greatly the prognostic in the long run.

Schizophrenia and oral health

Mental health is an essential component of general health. Schizophrenia is a severe and chronic mental illness that affects higher brain functions. It is characterized by the presence of a mental dissociation, dampened or inappropriate affects, hallucinations and delirium. Schizophrenia has also a negative impact on oral health. As schizophrenia affects 1% of the population, every practitioner concerned with oral sphere will be confronted one day or another with a patient suffering from this disease. It is therefore important to acquire essential notions. The aim of our work was to make an update about factors that may affect oral health in patients with schizophrenia.

What Happens in Your Brain During Mental Dissociation? A Quest Towards Neural Markers of a Unified Sense of Self

Whether you feel dissociated from the rest of the world or from yourself, you feel some kind of mental dissociations. Each form of mental dissociations varies in symptomatology and associated deficits. Nevertheless, psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuroscientists have discussed, for decades, the possibility of a holistic neural mechanism underlying the core feature of mental dissociations, i.e., disruption of a unified sense of self and a failure to accurately integrate multisensory information between self and social environment. Recently, functional and electrical neuroimaging studies shed light on this question by pointing to a correlation between the core symptomatology of mental dissociations and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)—an area involved in sense of self, agency, perspective taking, and multimodal integration of somatosensory information. Interestingly, results also suggest that each specific aspect of each form of mental dissociation is associated with brain areas that are specific to that domain.

Comparative Evaluation of Mental Dissociation, Phobia, Anxiety and Aggression in People with Hearing Impaired and those with Normal Hearing in Ahwaz “Iran”

Comparative Evaluation of Mental Dissociation, Phobia, Anxiety and Aggression in People with Hearing Impaired and those with Normal Hearing in Ahwaz “Iran”

¿Dobles o espíritus? Las teorías del desdoblamiento frente al espiritismo en la España de principios del siglo XX

This paper discusses the relation between dissociation theories and spiritism in Spain. It shows two cases that took place at the beginnings of the 20th Century. The first describes the mental dissociation that the physician Victor Melcior attributed to the medium Teresa Esquius. The second shows the polemic, between the astronomer Josep Comas and the spiritist Jacint Fornaguera, in regard to the bodily dissociation in the medium Carmen Dominguez. It is argued that these kind of debates favoured the scientific study of mediumship.

The Study of Personality Characteristics and Mental Health in Addicts

The purpose of present study was investigated the personality characteristics and mental health in addicts that are under the drugs treatment in Addiction Drop-out Centers in the Alborz province. The sample of 100 people was selected randomly among addicts in the range of 25-55 years old that they were under treatment in addiction drop-out centers. The research method was descriptive correlation and for evaluating personality characteristics used the Big Five Personality Questionnaire Short Form (NEO-FFI- 1990) that it contained the big five personality factors or neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, conscientiousn ess, agreeableness. For mental health assessment used the 90-R-SCL questionnaire. And investigated the dimensions of physical complaints, obsessive - compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, aggression, phobia, paranoid ideation and mental dissociation. And were analyzed the Pearson correlation coefficient between dimensions of personality characteristics and mental health. The result of the study indicated a significant and positive relationship between personality factors and dimensions of mental health tests.

Schizophrénie et double parricide : à propos d'une observation clinique

Schizophrénie et double parricide : à propos d'une observation clinique

Schizophrénie et double parricide : à propos d'une observation clinique

Parricide has always been considered as the most appalling, rarest and most unnatural crime ever. Among the adults that have committed parricide, numerous of them are mentally ill. This incredible story of a schizophrenic responsible for committing double parricide, enables us to understand the dimensions conductive to crime related to delirious and paranoid states. In more general terms, this example opens the debate on the problems posed in approaching a prognostic and prevention of psychotic's violent acts. On the 25th December, Christmas day, feeling lonely and abandoned by everyone, A. calls his parents asking them to come to his home. Scared by previous violent incidents involving their son, they decide to go there accompanied by A's uncle, and ring on the bell. A. greets them on the side-walk, and seeming already “tolerably” agitated and unsteady, he offers a meticulously wrapped present to his father, which proves to be a loaded hunting gun. Confronted by his fathers refusal to accept the present, A. opens the package and kills him father firing two gunshots in his chest, then proceeded to fire at close range on his mother, killing her by a shot her in the abdomen. The uncle, now injured in the shoulder, manages to escape. As a result of this double murder, A. is questioned by the police. As consequence of faced with his delirious account, he is hospitalised immediately. How could such a terrible tragedy occur? At the time of the act, A. is 27 years old. His schooling is marked by early difficulties and instability, as is his professional experience, which only consists of various “small” jobs. He blames these failures on his parent's frequent disputes, who finally end up in divorce. This represents a real trauma for A., on which he crystallises the entirety of his suffering, which is fuelled by his persecutive delirium based on his past and lived experiences. In the preceding five years leading up to the murder, A. had been hospitalised for psychiatric care on four occasions, all linked with violence perpetrated on his mother. These all took place in a state of delirium, with themes of persecution and interpretation. Some examples including : “My parent's made a prostitute of my sister… They used me for the psychiatric services… I mustn't be hospitalised again, they practice vivisection on their patients… My mother used to insult me… She has been transformed and manipulated by the medical services… She has the strength of the devil…” clearly show us the active and targeted persecution and suffering ; violence is used in an effort to put an end to this. However, A's patch of violence does not stop within the family group. He has been involved, on two separate occasions with the law. Firstly, after a fight, for which he has not convicted, and secondly, for grievous bodily harm along with death threats and arson. For the latter, he was convicted following a psychiatric assessment, and served 15 months imprisonment with compulsory psychiatric treatment. All these measures do not stop such a tragedy occurring, after which, in accordance to clause D 398 of the French Procedure Penal Code, A. is hospitalised immediately. In accordance with two psychiatric assessments, the judge pronounces a decision of nonsuit in applying the French Penal Code clause 122-1 alinea 1. During his hospitalisation, and despite his transfer into UMD. “Unité pour Malades Difficiles” (Psychiatric Unit accepting dangerous mentally ill patients) and even if the delirium declines, with the effects of chemotherapy, psychotherapy and institutionalisation, A. remains potentially highly dangerous. He continues to be only superficially aware of his parricidal acts, represses his delirium and actively denies his pathology. Here we can see that mental illness occupies the preponderant place in the origin and dynamic in committing violent acts. The persecutive delirium, violence and denial (symptoms of mental dissociation) give a clinical explanation to this act, which is usually reputated among the most incomprehensible. This typical case of dangerous delirious schizophrenia illustrates once again the necessity not to underestimate the extremely clear and recurring signs of danger (lived experience, delirious directive speech, the generated pain and desire to end the suffering and alleged prejudices, all bringing about aggressive action…). These negative emotions aroused by deliriums of prejudice and persecution most often risk, and we insist of this point, a provocation of pathological self-defensive attitudes and behaviour. These are defensive, avoidance reactions or escape, or, as we saw with A., aggression against “the persecutors”. This violent acts are destined to control or stop the source of persecutive feelings. Constrained hospitalisation, even at long term if necessary, with constant and regular checks of chemical and psychotherapeutic treatment are curative and preventive measures which should be compulsory to avoid this type of tragedy.

Une histoire de la dissociation schizophrénique

A history of dissociative schizophrenia. French psychiatry maintains that the fundamental process of schizophrenia concerns mental dissociation. How can one explain such an attachment to this notion? To designate the pathologic mechanism at work in chronic dementia, Bleuler was careful to use a new term: Spaltung. English speakers were able to use the equivalent ‘splitting’ without difficulty; French clinicians hesitated before confining themselves to ‘dissociation’. They were not mistaken, finding in Spaltung a familiar idea from the introduction by Ribot, Binet et Janet, that of ‘psychic dissociation’. This was not undeserved. After having temporarily exhausted its explanatory capacities in hysteria, double personalities and ideational paralysis, dear to the hearts of Charcot's students, it helped create the Freudian unconscious, while serving the alienists to transform chronic dementia into schizophrenia. Afterward it surfaced again as ‘cleavage’ in borderline states, before being restored under the American name of ‘dissociative’ disturbances of the memory and identity. It took a century to return to its starting point. One should understand that the French authors, having a weakness for schizophrenic dissociation have, more or less confusely, always seen this as their original contribution. However, its success shows how little renewing of psychopathological concepts was achieved in the century that just ended. Gone is the brief period of creative innovation of the 1880s swept away by the recycling of dissociation.

Estado confuso-onírico y apoplejía hipofisaria: hipótesis neurovasculares

Pituitary apoplexy has been defined classically as a nosologic syndrome of predominant headache, visual deficits and decreased level of consciousness, but there are not any psychopathological associations described in the scientific literature directly related to it. The disorder of sensorium or arousal is a variable sign, with a rank of features from moderated lethargy to coma and stupor, revealing a torpid evolution. We present a case with behavioral changes, mental dissociation and temporal illusions. In turn, infections or endocrinologic morbidity are rejected; it is estimated a nosological difference of confused-oneiric psychosis in a neurovascular context. In the neuroanatomical context, an acceptable hypothesis for this emotional semiology would be the effect of diaschisis on hypothalamic and hypophyseal fibers in connection with limbic system/hippocampus. There could be, in addition, a demonstration of the relationship between this hypophyseal-hypothalamic system and the rhinencephalic or vegetative brain, the seat of behavioral activity.

On Being a Black Writer in America

On Being a Black Writer in America Virginia Hamilton (bio) I write for young people in part because my rural childhood was filled with light, openness and time for my imagination to soar. I keep wonderfully clear memories from that period. And as a novelist, I am able to transform that which evolves from my own experience of living into a coherent fictional form. This may be the fundamental meaning of self-expression: the discovery by the author of new ways of expressing real sources of living that are particularly hers. Thus, writing over a period of time does indeed stand for what she has lived and what living has meant to her. I have written twenty books for young people starting from the read-alone age to young adult age, so that now a brand new generation of the young is acquainted with them. I considered myself a fictionist although I have written biographies of the great baritone, Paul Robeson, and the fine scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois. Over the years, I have attempted through my books to bring to children and young adult readers something of value lives from the unique American black perspective, as well as to shed light on the real concerns of young people in a world in which survival becomes for them increasingly more difficult. Through character, time and place, I've attempted to portray the essence of a race, its essential community, culture, history and traditions, which I know well, and its relation to the larger American society. I endeavor to demonstrate the nexus the black group has with all other groups, nationalities and races, the connection the American black child has with all children and to present the best of my heritage. I consider myself a student of history as well as literature. My books generally have an historical aspect that becomes an integral part of the fictions. A novel taking place in the present will often evoke an atmosphere of former generations. We carry our pasts with us in the present through states of mind, family history and historical fact. No one source is more specific to and symbolic of my writing than the historical progression of black people across the American hopescape. Historically, Americans have thought of themselves as egalitarian, aware at least of a constant assertion of the equality of all. We proposed a unique concept, that the young have the right to books reflecting their cultural and racial and spiritual heritage. Cultural democracy was to be the giant step on the way to equal education and the first [End Page 15] principle to the attainment of human equality. We assumed as a human right that all people have free access to information about themselves and their pasts. While many of us hold to the same beliefs, others attempt to censor what American young people will read, by removing so-called controversial books from library shelves and, more subtly with books by and about blacks, by simply not making them available, by not purchasing them. In some cases, works by and about blacks are said to be too sophisticated, too high art for the young. Books like my own, which are occasionally mildly experimental —with subject matter having to do with mental dissociation, graphic imagery of nuclear explosions, Amerindian and black survival in a hostile majority society, children alone and hungry for love and companionship —are said to be, and often by those adults who should know better, only for the especially gifted child. It is rather interesting that the awards some of my works have received often contribute to the apparent suspicion that the works are "art" or "literature" and therefore too difficult or too special for the usual or ordinary child. These adults would keep the young at a safe and quasi-literate level, where their response to life and to the world remains predictable and manageable. The way I counteract such backwardness is by keeping fresh my awareness of young people's keen imaginations and by responding to their needs, fears, loves and hungers in as many new ways as possible. Whatever art I possess is a social action in itself. My view is that...

Hypnotism and Suggestion

In any consideration of the nature of suggestion we cannot omit reference to the extraordinary and startling phenomena which may sometimes be observed in hypnotized subjects. But it would be a mistake to look upon hypnosis as something uncanny, mysterious, and occult. Although we have even yet no thoroughly satisfactory theory of hypnosis, we understand it in general terms, and can bring it into line with other facts and phenomena of psychology known in everyday life. The hypnotic subject, and the phenomena of hypnosis, can be explained firstly in terms of mental dissociation, of the tendency for certain forms of psychical activity to occur independently of the rest of the mind, independently of other considerations; and, secondly, in terms of suggestion, of increased suggestibility. And these two, the phenomenon of dissociation and the phenomenon of suggestibility, are not unrelated to one another. They are related, but not to the extent of being identical with one another. It was the Nancy School of Hypnotism, led by Bernheim, who considered that hypnosis could be explained in terms of suggestibility.

HYPNOTISM AND SUGGESTION

In any consideration of the nature of suggestion we cannot omit reference to the extraordinary and startling phenomena which may sometimes be observed in hypnotized subjects. But it would be a mistake to look upon hypnosis as something uncanny, mysterious, and occult. Although we have even yet no thoroughly satisfactory theory of hypnosis, we understand it in general terms, and can bring it into line with other facts and phenomena of psychology known in everyday life. hypnotic subject, and the phenomena of hypnosis, can be explained firstly in terms of mental dissociation, of the tendency for certain forms of psychical activity to occur independently of the rest of the mind, independently of other considerations; and, secondly, in terms of suggestion, of increased suggestibility. And these two, the phenomenon of dissociation and the phenomenon of suggestibility, are not unrelated to one another. They are related, but not to the extent of being identical with one another. It was the Nancy School of Hypnotism, led by Bernheim, who considered that hypnosis could be explained in terms of suggestibility. Charcot had previously explained hypnosis as an artificial hysteria-as a dissociation of the highest levels of the nervous system, a dissociation of mental and physiological activity at the higher conscious level. But the theory I am trying to sketch is the theory that combines both these statements. In my own view, based on the study of many hundreds of cases, hypnosis is explained both by dissociation and by increased suggestibility. We certainly do find increase of suggestibility occurring, partly explained in terms of dissociation, but not entirely so. On the other hand, the dissociation in its more pronounced forms may show itself independently of suggestibility. Which is the cause and which the effect of these two ? Dissociation as a cause may bring with it increase of suggestibility. We can understand why that should be so. Does increased suggestibility on its side bring dissociation? It may tend to do so. A person who is in an increasingly suggestible state responds to just the one stimulus before him-it may be a stimulus from the outer world, or an idea aroused in his mind by the experimenter. He responds with his whole mind and strength to the 1 Being part of a paper on The Self: Psycho-Analysis and PsychoTherapy, read before the Church Congress, Newport, Mon., on October 8,

Psychoprophylaxis in childhood.

Discusses the role of psychoprophylaxis, the means of preserving health by psychic means, in childhood. Describes the essence of psychoprophylaxis as that of associating useful activities with agreeable feeling-tones, and to disassociate from useless or injurious acts the agreeable feeling-tones that may have been acquired. Interest, suggestions, hypnoidization and persuasion are procedures which favor passivity, psychological automatism, mental dissociation and suggestibility. Employing authoritative affirmation rather than suggestion is believed to be the best method in early childhood, and sometimes even in adolescents. Teaching mothers to form healthy emotional habits in their children was presented as a desirous way. Stresses the need of facilities for instructing medical men in principles of psychopathology and therapeutics to provide opportunities to re-educate the perverted trends of the patient's disposition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Review of Psychopathological researches: Studies in mental dissociation.

Review of Psychopathological researches: Studies in mental dissociation.