Is there a link between dissociation and dementia?
I've been thinking about how dissociative processes may contribute to long-term cognitive decline and even dementia. A dissociative process happens when a person experiences an intense emotion and minimises or even 'checks out' either through choice or automatic impulse developed through habit, which may have started in childhood. Sometimes, minimising or completely 'checking out' was the only safe way to deal with traumatic (i.e. survival-based) emotions in an abusive relationship with caregivers. Many people do not learn the skills to recognise and process their emotions due to not having had their emotions accepted and reflected back to them as children. Instead, they were punished or disapproved of for their emotions. Without acceptance of emotions, from adults, children learn to distrust their own emotional experiencing and internalise the adults' desires for control and other attitudes toward their feelings. This may generate fear-based, negative self-tal...