ABSTRACT
The term “dissociation” has been defined in various ways over the decades and has become ever broader and vaguer. Currently it not only includes pathological symptoms and disorders but also entirely normal and ubiquitous experiences. The vast number of experiences now labeled as dissociative makes it challenging for clinicians and researchers to accurately assess for dissociative symptoms and disorders and has also resulted in confusion about treatment approaches as well as about research. This chapter explores some major definitions of dissociation prominent in much of the current clinical and theoretical trauma literature. We focus on differences between normal and pathological alterations in consciousness (e.g., mental absorption, detachment, imaginative involvement, trance states, and hypoarousal), and the definitions of dissociation that more narrowly limit the concept to a particular kind of division within the entire personality of an individual or to doubling or multiplication of the personality. This distinction has theoretical, clinical, and research implications.
