DISSOCIATION

Dissociation

In psychology, the term dissociation describes a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality – rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. Dissociative experiences are further characterized by the varied maladaptive mental constructions of an individual's natural imaginative capacity.

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dissociation

Noun

  1. The act of dissociating or disuniting; a state of separation; disunion.
  2. The process by which a compound body breaks up into simpler constituents; said particularly of the action of heat on gaseous or volatile substances.
    the dissociation of the sulphur molecules
    the dissociation of ammonium chloride into hydrochloric acid and ammonia
  1. A defence mechanism where certain thoughts or mental processes are compartmentalised in order to avoid emotional stress to the conscious mind.
    "Project MONARCH could be best described as a form of structured dissociation and occultic integration, carried out in order to compartmentalize the mind into multiple personalities within a systematic framework." —Ron Patton


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: dissociation
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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