Dissociative Amnesia- Memory Loss Essay -- short term memory, American

Introduction: The main Character is Lenard; he is an average looking male in his mid to early thirties. At first look one would never think that there is anything wrong with him, he speaks clearly and intelligently, id s polite individual and well-mannered when interacting with others. Lenard does the typical things and daily activities that a normal person does. On sight one can’t tell that, but Lenard has a condition where he cannot recall anything that happens to him within a matter of minutes, things such as people he meets, the conversations he had and places he’s been become distant after a few minutes. The only thing that Lenard is able to remember is those things that happened before the incident that caused his diagnosis. The things that Lenard is able to recall are those things such as his name, who he is, and the way his life was before the traumatic experience. Lenard is incapable of making new memories as well as short term memories. Diagnosis: In the film Lenard tells people that he has short term memory loss, this isn’t the case though, Lenard’s disorder is in fact more serious then he knows. Lenard has; individuals who have this condition like Lenard have difficulties remembering parts of their lives from a single event or numerous events that have occurred. Dissociative amnesia typically occurs when a traumatic event happens in that individual’s life. For Lenard, the traumatic event that occurred in his life was the rapping and murder of his wife which occurred in their own house while Lenard was asleep, then awoke to see what was going on, to which he was hit across the head with a gun which caused his condition, then left laying besides his lifeless wife on the bathroom floor, Symptoms & Axis I-V: The DSM... ...ma he encountered didn’t occur. Works Cited: DSM-IV-TR. (n.d.). American Psychiatric Association. Memento. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Landmark, 2000. DVD. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Etiology. Retrieved November 9, 2013 from Merriam- Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/etiology NCBI. (n.d.) Us National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16791779 Psychotherapy And Counseling. (n.d.). Dissociative Amnesia – DSMIV Definition. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from the DSM IV: http://psychotherapyandcounseling.org/dissociative-disorders- category/dissociative-amnesia Whitbourne, S. K., & Haligan, R. P. (2013). Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders, Seventh Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.