Dissociation Processes and their Measurement

Overview

Dissociation is a concept introduced by Pierre Janet for splitting consciousness due to a trauma-tic event or during hypnosis. The term dissociation takes a more general form in Hilgard’s neodis-sociation theory in the theory of state dependent learning and modern findings of explicit andimplicit perception in connection with the study of evoked potentials. Mathematical descriptionof dissociated states as localized or parallel distributed processing makes models of neural ne-tworks possible. The sum of these findings leads to a shift in grasping of dissociation from hypo-thesis to clinical, experimental and theoretical reality. We present to our wider public ofspecialists a valid instrument for the measurement of dissociation DES (Dissociative ExperiencesScale - Bernstein, E. M., Putman, F. W.: Development, Reliability, and Validity of a DissociationScale. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 174 (12), 1986, pp. 727-735) which is used in patients and also formeasurements in the healthy population.

Key words:
neural networks, traumatic event, dissociation, evoked potentials.