What are the symptoms of dissociative amnesia?

What are the symptoms of dissociative amnesia?

There are three types, or patterns, of dissociative amnesia:

• Localized: Memory loss affects specific areas of knowledge or parts of a person’s life, such as a certain period during childhood, or anything about a friend or coworker. Often the memory loss focuses on a specific trauma. For example, a crime victim may have no memory of being robbed at gunpoint, but can recall details from the rest of that day.
• Generalized: Memory loss affects major parts of a person’s life and/or identity, such as a being unable to recognize your name, job, family and friends.
• Fugue: With dissociative fugue, the person has generalized amnesia and adopts a new identity. For example, one middle manager was passed over for promotion. He did not come home from work and was reported as missing by his family. He was found a week later, 600 miles away, living under a different name, working as a short-order cook. When found by the police, he could not recognize any family member, friend or coworker, and he could not say who he was or explain his lack of identification.

Dissociative amnesia is different from amnesia caused by medical problems, such as illnesses, strokes or brain injuries. In medically caused amnesia, recovering memories are rare and generally a slow and gradual process.

Most cases of dissociative amnesia are relatively short. Often, memories return suddenly and completely. Memory recovery may be triggered by something in the person’s surroundings, or in therapy.

Also, people who suffer medical amnesia are upset by their memory loss, where most people with dissociative amnesia seem to have surprisingly little concern over their amnesia.