The term “dissociation” has received a lot of public and professional attention in recent years. This is likely due to the increased interest in psychological trauma, and, unfortunately, movies like "Split," ostensibly about someone with dissociative identity disorder (DID), but portrayed more as a psychopath.

Despite the rise of the awareness of dissociation, I can’t help but notice that the general understanding remains relatively narrow; it's usually presented as splitting into another identity or PTSD flashbacks. In reality, dissociation is part of everyday life—but it indeed can be pathological.

The definition of dissociation, from a clinical standpoint, is twofold:

Considering the first definition, if you’ve ever been on a long car ride and all of a sudden it seems you arrived at the destination in no time, you’ve experienced dissociation. Now, if you’re sitting down, notice the feeling of the floor under your feet and your body against the chair. You probably weren’t aware of those contacts until I drew your attention to them because, you guessed it, you were not conscious of them.

Dissociations like these are just part of everyday life. They are often adaptable, like when there’s a lot of background noise and you’re able to “tune it out” to concentrate better.

As for the second definition, psychologist Nancy McWilliams (2011) explained that dissociative experiences are "a common first-line adaptation to deal with destabilizing situations like emotional intensity" and are considered normal experiences. If you have ever encountered what you consider an emotionally charged situation, like an EMT rescuing someone from an accident, but felt oddly calm, you have encountered the second definition. It is like a momentary emotional callous to help get through a situation where panic would be detrimental.

While dissociations like the above are innocuous, everyday experiences, the other end of the dissociation continuum includes more pernicious encounters, often associated with trauma, depression, and personality disturbances, including the following:

1. Dissociative amnesia

In this form of dissociation, there are missing recollections of specific times/incidents. The amnesia can be for specific parts of the traumatic event, like the most frightening or painful, for example, or an entire timeframe leading up to, and following the event(s). Some, like children who have endured chronic abuse, neglect, and loss, or people living in war-torn regions, may literally not recall more than vague........

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