What is it about?
Dissociation is a “disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of who he or she is” [1]. It involves a sense of losing awareness of one’s immediate surroundings.
There is a continuum of severity [2].
The least severe form would be daydreaming or going on ‘auto-pilot’ while doing something out of habit (e.g., commuting to work). More severe forms are such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), where individuals form completely separate identities and realities for prolonged periods of time.
Dissociation as a coping mechanism
Dissociation can be helpful in the moment of a traumatic event, such as a disaster, an accident or an instance of victimization. It is a momentary coping mechanism for people to be able to tolerate what they are experiencing at that particular moment. By doing so, people escape mentally from the feelings of fear, pain or horror they might be experiencing. This could also result in individuals having difficulty recalling the details of the experience.
However, dissociation can become a disorder when a person relies too heavily on it as a coping mechanism. This will affect their sense of personal history and identity in the long-run. Subsequently, this will present issues in relationships or even day-to-day functioning, especially in relation to stress
Read Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) for more information.
References:
[1] Sidran Institute. (2021). What is a dissociative disorder?. https://www.sidran.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/What-is-a-dissociative-disorder.pdf
[2] Mental Health America. (2021). Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders. https://mhanational.org/conditions/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders
