Publication

Abstract : Functional amnesia for autobiographical memory is a rare but pathognomic sign of dissociative disorders. Amnesia for part of one's personal history is sometimes also seen in other functional disorders like depression and schizophrenia but autobiographical amnesia in these disorders is relatively rar . Phenomenologically the autobiographical memory loss, amnesia for events during the amnestic episode and change of identity (as in fugae and dissociative identity disorder) are all expressions of altered memory organisation. This paper reports three cases of autobiographical amnesia with clinical diagnoses of dissociative disorder unspecified type, dissociative amnesia and schizophrenia that were treated successfully. The phenomenon of autobiographical amnesia is discussed in the background of these cases.