Definition:
Dissociative fugue is a rare condition in which a person suddenly, without planning or warning, travels far from home or work and leaves behind his or her past life. Patients show signs of amnesia and have no conscious understanding or knowledge of the reason for their leave. The condition is usually linked with severe stress or trauma. Since persons cannot remember all or part of their past, at some point they become confused about their identity and the situations in which they find themselves. In rare cases, they may adopt on new identities.
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Diagnosis:
The diagnosis can then be done using the patient's history and reconstruction of events that occurred before, during, and after the patient's excursion.
Treatment:
Psychotherapy, sometimes involving hypnosis, is usually effective in the treatment of dissociative fugue. Patients, with support from therapists, are encouraged to remember past events by learning to face and cope with the stressful experiences that led to the fugue.
Symptoms and Signs:
A person in the midst of a dissociative fugue episode may seem to have no psychiatric symptoms at all or to be only slightly confused.
Causes:
Episodes of dissociative fugue are often linked with very stressful events. Traumatic experiences such a war, or natural disasters, seem to raise the incidence of the disorder. Other, more personal types of stress might also result to the unplanned travel and amnesia characteristic of dissociative fugue.
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