Dissociation: Developing a Cognitive Maintenance Model and Psychological Intervention (360G-Wellcome-211025_Z_18_Z)

As we interact with the world around us, our experience is a result of the synthesis of our consciousness, memory, sense of identity and perception. In ‘dissociation’, this coherence fails or disintegrates. The disintegration may be sudden – meaning that people experience sudden ‘black-outs’ and amnesia for the intervening time – or gradual, where the person may feel increasingly numb or detached from reality. Chronic dissociation is an important problem for mental health professionals to address because it can cause considerable distress and disruption. It is the strongest predictor of a person making multiple suicide attempts, and is thought to underlie self-harming behaviour (such as ‘cutting’). Dissociation is not just experienced in ‘dissociative disorders’, but also across many different psychiatric disorders, including up to 50% of people with psychosis. The aim of this project is to develop and test a new psychological explanation of dissociation as it occurs in psychosis. First, experiments will be carried out with members of the general population to determine which psychological factors perpetuate dissociative experiences. Then, a psychological treatment which targets one or more of these factors will be developed and tested with a small group of people with psychosis and dissociation.