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First published online June 8, 2021

A Critical Review of Case Studies on Dissociative Amnesia

Ivan Mangiulli https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5409-7325 [email protected], Henry Otgaar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2782-2181, […], Marko Jelicic, and Harald Merckelbach https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5116-7826+1View all authors and affiliations
Volume 10, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026211018194

Abstract

Dissociative amnesia, defined as an inability to remember important autobiographical experiences, usually of a stressful nature, is a controversial phenomenon. We systematically reviewed 128 case studies of dissociative amnesia reported in 60 articles that appeared in peer-reviewed journals in English over the past 20 years (2000–2020). Our aim was to examine to what extent these cases met core features of dissociative amnesia. All cases were about reports of autobiographical memory loss, but the evidence offered in support of a dissociative amnesia interpretation was often weak and plagued by an ambiguous heterogeneity with respect to nature, etiology, and differential diagnoses of alleged memory loss. Most case studies failed to rule out plausible alternative explanations of dissociative amnesia, such as ordinary forgetting and malingering. We encourage clinicians and researchers to more critically investigate alleged cases of dissociative amnesia and provide criteria for how a dissociative amnesia case ideally would look like.

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Action Editor: Michael F. Pogue-Geile
Editor: Kenneth J. Sher
Author Contributions
All of the authors were involved in realizing the coding scheme, coding the case studies, and analyzing the data. I. Mangiulli drafted the manuscript, and the coauthors added to and edited the manuscript. All of the authors approved the final manuscript for submission.

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Published In

Volume 10, Issue 2
Pages: 191 - 211
Article first published online: June 8, 2021
Issue published: March 2022

Keywords

  1. dissociative amnesia
  2. organic amnesia
  3. trauma
  4. ordinary forgetting
  5. malingering

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Ivan Mangiulli
Leuven Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven
Forensic Psychology Section, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5409-7325
[email protected]
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Henry Otgaar
Leuven Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven
Forensic Psychology Section, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2782-2181
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Marko Jelicic
Forensic Psychology Section, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
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Harald Merckelbach
Forensic Psychology Section, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5116-7826
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Notes

Ivan Mangiulli, Leuven Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven E-mail: [email protected]

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