Understanding Dissociative Disorders: A Guide for Family Physicians and Health Care Professionals

'Dissociative disorder' has come to mean an incredible ability to compartmentalize one's mind to a degree which, in the adult, often becomes dysfunctional rather than useful. This book is for all family physicians and mental health professionals who come face to face with the idiosyncrasies of dissociative patients--their problematic ways of responding to medication, the unusual laboratory results, and a multitude of physical and emotional symptoms.

Marlene Hunter offers realistic, practical answers to questions, some of which professionals won't even have thought of asking. Carefully organized for easy reference, this volume discusses what you can do and what you cannot, where and how to ask for outside help, and how to talk to your patient. More importantly, it explains what leads patients to their own solutions even when these seem utterly unrealistic on the surface.

Family physicians and health care professionals should be the first to recognize these complex disorders. They see the discrepancies, the unexplained and unexplainable symptoms, the distress and, often, the agony. This book will become a beacon for all professionals who want to help their patients and their families come to grips with this debilitating disorder.

Originally published in hardcover under ISBN: 9781904424246.

Marlene E. Hunter, MD is a family physician who began to work with highly dissociative patients in 1977. She is a Certificant and Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and a past Associate Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Family Medicine. She is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis (B. C. Division), the B. C. College of Family Physicians and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD).