Dissociation and Memory

Snap Shot

• The question: What does research show about dissociation during trauma, dissociative amnesia, and whether people who dissociate are more prone to memory error or suggestion?
• What the research shows: Dissociation during a traumatic event is among the stronger predictors of later posttraumatic stress, but it is usually measured by later self-report, and memory for it changes over time. Dissociative amnesia is a recognized diagnosis, but many published case reports do not rule out ordinary forgetting or feigning. Researchers disagree about how much trauma, as opposed to fantasy proneness and cognitive factors, explains dissociation, and about whether dissociation is linked to suggestibility.
• What it does not show: A dissociation score is not a diagnosis and cannot show that a particular memory is true or false or that an event did or did not occur. No test can establish with certainty that a particular claim of amnesia is genuine or feigned.
• The law: Testimony on dissociation is governed by Rule 702, Daubert, Kumho, and, in courts-martial, Houser; R.C.M. 706 and 916(k) govern mental-condition evidence about an accused, and amnesia alone generally does not make an accused incompetent (Wilson; McClendon). Arizona applies current Rule 702 (generally understood to have superseded Logerquist), bars credibility opinions (Lindsey), and confines mental-disorder evidence on mens rea to the insanity defense (Mott).
• Issues for each side: Prosecutors can show that dissociation is common after trauma and says nothing about whether abuse occurred, and that amnesia claims warrant testing, while recognizing that genuine amnesia occurs. Defense counsel can show the weak foundation of many dissociative-amnesia case reports and the link some research finds with suggestibility, while recognizing that the research is contested and cannot show any memory false.

Psychiatric classification treats dissociation as a breakdown in the way awareness, memory, identity, perception, and emotion ordinarily work together (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). It runs along a continuum, from ordinary absorption in a book or task, through feeling detached from oneself or that one’s surroundings are unreal, to the gaps in memory and identity seen in dissociative disorders. Many people describe such reactions during a frightening event, such as time slowing down.

Dissociation reaches court when a complainant reports feeling detached during an assault or being unable to remember parts of it, when an expert offers dissociation to explain gaps in an account or to suggest that a witness is especially vulnerable to suggestion, and when an accused claims amnesia for the offense. Each use rests on research that is genuinely contested between two research traditions that read the same evidence differently.

This paper covers measurement, peritraumatic dissociation, dissociative amnesia, the competing models, suggestibility, and claims of amnesia for an offense, then the limits of the evidence and the law. Repression and the general effects of trauma on memory are addressed in the Recovered and Repressed Memory and the Emotion, Stress, Trauma, and Memory papers.

Measuring Dissociation

Dissociation in research is most often measured with the Dissociative Experiences Scale, a 28-item self-report questionnaire on which people estimate how often they have experiences such as absorption, depersonalization and derealization, and gaps in memory (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986). A score describes how often a person reports such experiences; it is not a diagnosis, and it does not describe the person’s state during any particular event.

Researchers distinguish trait dissociation, the general tendency such scales measure, from peritraumatic dissociation, the reactions a person had during or just after a traumatic event. Because those reactions are usually rated afterward, the measure is itself a memory.

Peritraumatic Dissociation, PTSD, and Memory

Peritraumatic dissociation is consistently associated with later posttraumatic stress. In a meta-analysis of 68 studies of seven predictors of PTSD, peritraumatic dissociation had the largest weighted association (r = .35), compared with about .17 for factors such as prior trauma and family history (Ozer et al., 2003). A later meta-analysis of 59 studies confirmed a significant positive relationship, but found that differences in methodological rigor, including how long after the event dissociation was assessed, study design, and sample type, explained the variation in effect sizes, and concluded that the designs did not permit causal conclusions (Lensvelt-Mulders et al., 2008).

The reliance on retrospective report is a central limitation. Critics have argued that people, particularly people with PTSD, have difficulty describing past emotional states accurately, so that such reports may be shaped by forgetting, attribution, and incentives (Candel & Merckelbach, 2004). A study of 200 adults with PTSD in a randomized treatment trial supports the point that such reports change: after treatment with either prolonged exposure or medication, participants remembered their reactions at the time of the trauma as less dissociative and less anxious, and the change was largest among those who improved (Gauthier et al., 2025).

Whether dissociation during an event impairs memory of it is less settled than often assumed. Several clinical theories hold that it disrupts encoding and fragments the trauma memory, but across 16 studies, an association between dissociation and fragmentation appeared mainly when people rated their own memories as fragmented, and not when trained raters or computer methods coded the narratives (Bedard-Gilligan & Zoellner, 2012). The fragmentation debate is discussed further in the Emotion, Stress, Trauma, and Memory paper.

Dissociative Amnesia

In general terms, the current diagnostic manual describes dissociative amnesia as a loss of memory for important personal information, usually connected with traumatic or stressful experiences, that goes beyond ordinary forgetfulness. The loss most often concerns a particular event or period and only rarely a person’s whole identity and history, and the diagnosis requires significant distress or impairment and that the loss not be better explained by substances, a medical or neurological condition, or another mental disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Gaps in memory for part of a trauma are also among the symptoms considered for PTSD. The diagnosis describes a clinical presentation; it does not establish what the forgotten material was, whether it was preserved intact, or whether a later recovered memory is accurate.

Researchers who study dissociative amnesia clinically treat it as a real, if controversial, disorder that may be heterogeneous, mainly affecting autobiographical memory, with imaging studies showing changes in the network that supports autobiographical memory (Staniloiu & Markowitsch, 2014). Critics have examined the evidence offered for it. A review of 128 published case studies from 2000 to 2020 found that the evidence for the diagnosis was often weak and that most reports did not rule out alternatives such as ordinary forgetting and feigning (Mangiulli, Otgaar, et al., 2022). That review evaluates how cases were documented; it does not show that dissociative amnesia never occurs. The broader dispute over whether dissociative amnesia is a renamed form of repression is presented, with both positions, in the Recovered and Repressed Memory paper (Brewin, 2021; Otgaar et al., 2019).

Research on dissociative identity disorder illustrates the gap that can exist between reported and measured amnesia. In a study of 31 patients, 21 reported complete one-way amnesia between identities for material learned in a laboratory task, yet their recall and recognition did not differ from those of control participants (Huntjens et al., 2003). A 2024 meta-analysis of studies of inter-identity amnesia found evidence of some memory transfer between identities in two of four analyses and patterns closer to amnesia in the other two, and cautioned that the studies were few, small, and conducted by a limited number of research teams (Beker et al., 2024). Reported and measured amnesia can diverge, but the research does not resolve the nature of the disorder.

The Trauma and Sociocognitive Models

The trauma model holds that dissociation is a response to overwhelming fear and that trauma, particularly in childhood, is a causal contributor to dissociative symptoms. The sociocognitive or fantasy model holds that fantasy proneness, suggestibility, cognitive failures, and social and therapeutic influences contribute to dissociative symptoms and, in some cases, to reports of trauma.

A major review by researchers in the trauma tradition evaluated eight contrasting predictions. It concluded that the association between trauma and dissociation was consistent and moderate and held with objective measures of trauma and with fantasy proneness controlled; it also concluded that dissociation was not reliably associated with suggestibility and that the evidence did not show recovered memories to be less accurate in people high in dissociation (Dalenberg et al., 2012). Researchers in the sociocognitive tradition replied that the review moved too quickly from correlations to causal conclusions, gave too little weight to the lack of corroboration of abuse in many studies, and underestimated the relationship between dissociation and false memory. They acknowledged that trauma may play a less central causal role, identified points of agreement such as family environment and biological vulnerability, and argued that encoding trauma without being able to recall it lacks strong empirical support (Lynn et al., 2014). The original authors responded that their analyses were balanced and that the critics had overlooked weaknesses in studies supporting the fantasy model (Dalenberg et al., 2014). Both sides agree the relationship is real but disagree about how much of it trauma explains.

Dissociation, Suggestibility, and Fantasy Proneness

A review of cognitive research in dissociation concluded that dissociation is associated with subtle deficits such as heightened distractibility and with an enhanced tendency toward pseudo-memories, possibly through interrogative suggestibility, fantasy proneness, and cognitive failures; it found little objective evidence linking dissociation to memory fragmentation or to avoidant processing of threatening information (Giesbrecht et al., 2008). A trauma researcher disputed its reasoning on the trauma–dissociation link (Bremner, 2010), and the authors replied that their position had been misread (Giesbrecht et al., 2010). The Dalenberg et al. (2012) review reached a different conclusion on suggestibility.

Research with children in actual maltreatment investigations adds a qualification. In a study of 328 children questioned about a medical examination, a history of sexual or physical abuse predicted greater accuracy, while stress hormone levels and trauma symptoms were associated with more errors only among children with more dissociative tendencies (Eisen et al., 2007). Dissociation may therefore be one of several factors that bear on vulnerability to suggestion in some conditions, rather than a general marker of unreliability. Because dissociation is more common after trauma, a high score cannot be used to infer that a reported event did not occur.

Claims of Amnesia for an Offense

Reviews estimate that roughly 20% to 30% of violent offenders claim some amnesia for the offense (Jelicic, 2018), including 29% of one sample of life-sentence prisoners (Pyszora et al., 2003). Such claims may reflect organic amnesia, as from head injury or heavy intoxication, dissociative amnesia attributed to extreme emotion, or feigning. Some researchers argue that many claims are best understood as deception, because emotional events are usually well remembered and the claims cluster where they offer an advantage (Christianson & Merckelbach, 2004); others regard dissociative amnesia for an offense as rare but organic amnesia as plausible in many cases, and recommend finding a claim not credible only on converging evidence (Jelicic, 2018).

In forced-choice symptom validity testing, a person answers two-alternative questions about the offense; a score significantly below chance indicates that the person knew the answers (van Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2010), and researchers recommend combining such tests with other measures (Giger et al., 2010). Details learned through interrogation, discovery, or media undermine these tests, a score at or above chance does not establish genuine amnesia, and a 2023 review concluded that ruling out feigning may not be possible even with the best tools (Rubenzer, 2023). Feigning may also erode memory: laboratory participants who simulated amnesia for a mock crime later recalled fewer details than truthful participants (Mangiulli, Riesthuis, & Otgaar, 2022). These questions are developed in the Observation Evidence and Mental State paper.

Limits of the Evidence

Most dissociation research is correlational. Trait dissociation is measured by self-report scales that overlap with absorption and distress, and peritraumatic dissociation is measured retrospectively. Laboratory suggestibility studies use word lists and short films, and their effects are modest and inconsistent. Case reports and inter-identity amnesia studies are often incompletely documented or small. Research on amnesia claims relies on convicted offenders and on simulators with no real stakes, and the base rate of feigning in actual cases is unknown. No study in this literature can determine whether a particular person dissociated during a particular event, whether a particular gap in memory is dissociative, or whether a particular memory is accurate.

Questions to Ask About This Research

When a witness’s Dissociative Experiences Scale score is offered, counsel should ask what was counted: self-reported frequency of dissociative experiences in general, not a diagnosis, the person’s state during the event, or evidence about whether it occurred. When Ozer et al. (2003) or Lensvelt-Mulders et al. (2008) is cited, counsel should ask what the design permits: the studies link retrospective reports of peritraumatic dissociation to later PTSD and cannot show that dissociation caused memory loss. When Giesbrecht et al. (2008) or Dalenberg et al. (2012) is cited on suggestibility, counsel should ask whether the opposing review was acknowledged. When dissociative amnesia is offered to explain a gap or a delayed memory, counsel should ask whether ordinary forgetting, intoxication, injury, and feigning were considered, as many case reports reviewed by Mangiulli, Otgaar, et al. (2022) did not. These questions are explained in “Reading Research Claims: A Guide for Attorneys” on this site.

Dissociation and the Law

Federal and Military Standards

Expert testimony about dissociation is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as amended December 1, 2023, which requires the proponent to show that it is more likely than not that the testimony rests on sufficient facts or data and reliable methods reliably applied. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) assigned the trial judge a gatekeeping role, and Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael (1999) extended it to all expert testimony, including technical or other specialized knowledge. Testimony using dissociative amnesia to show that a recovered memory is accurate, or a dissociation score to show that a memory is false, invites the question whether the opinion outruns the data. In courts-martial, Military Rule of Evidence 702 tracks the federal rule, admissibility is assessed under the six factors of United States v. Houser (1993), and under Military Rule of Evidence 1102 the 2023 federal amendment took effect in the military rule in 2025 (Joint Service Committee on Military Justice, 2025); practitioners should confirm current text.

When an accused’s dissociation or amnesia is at issue, R.C.M. 706 provides for a sanity board inquiry into mental responsibility and capacity, and R.C.M. 916(k)(2) provides that a mental condition not amounting to a lack of mental responsibility is not an affirmative defense; its Discussion states that such evidence may be admissible on whether the accused had a state of mind required as an element, with notice of expert testimony under R.C.M. 701(b)(2). Genuine amnesia concerns what the accused remembers now, not what the accused intended when acting. Courts have generally held that amnesia for the offense does not by itself make an accused incompetent to stand trial; in Wilson v. United States (1968), the D.C. Circuit rejected a per se rule, asked whether the accused could perform the functions essential to a fair and accurate trial, and listed factors for the trial court to weigh in post-trial findings on whether the amnesia affected the fairness of the trial.

Arizona

In Logerquist v. McVey (2000), a divided (3–2) Arizona Supreme Court held that Frye did not apply to an expert’s testimony on repressed memory based on his own clinical experience and research and declined to adopt Daubert as interpreted in Joiner and Kumho (196 Ariz. 470, ¶¶ 30, 61–62). Arizona’s 2012 amendment of Rule 702 adopted the Daubert framework and is generally understood to have superseded Logerquist‘s approach, and a 2024 amendment tracks the 2023 federal amendment (Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004), so testimony about dissociation is tested under the current rule. On competency, the Arizona Supreme Court held in State v. McClendon (1968) that a defendant’s limited amnesia did not leave him unable to assist in his defense. State v. Chapple (1983), Arizona’s leading case on expert testimony about eyewitness memory, held that excluding such testimony was an abuse of discretion on its facts, while admission otherwise rests in the trial court’s discretion (State v. Nordstrom, 2001), and experts may not opine on the truthfulness of a particular witness or class of witnesses (State v. Lindsey, 1986, 149 Ariz. at 475). When a defendant offers dissociation on mens rea, State v. Mott (1997) bars expert evidence of a mental disorder short of insanity offered to negate the required mental state. Mott itself involved battered-woman-syndrome and low-intelligence testimony, and this paper did not locate an Arizona decision applying it to a dissociative diagnosis; by its terms, however, a dissociative diagnosis offered for that purpose would likely be treated as mental-disorder evidence that belongs to the guilty-except-insane defense, as discussed in the Observation Evidence and Mental State paper, and counsel should confirm current authority.

Special Issues in Legal Practice

The principles described above apply with equal force to every party in a legal proceeding. The science operates the same way regardless of who is asking the questions, and the research summarized here does not by itself favor either side. What differs between the parties is not the science but the vantage point — the particular places where these issues tend to surface, and the particular errors each party is best positioned to guard against. The two summaries below identify those recurring issues. They are offered for orientation, not as litigation strategy; in every case the controlling question is what the evidence in that case will, and will not, support, and the expert’s role is to inform the trier of fact rather than to advocate for either side.

Special Issues for Prosecutors

The research supports several propositions prosecutors can legitimately present. Dissociative reactions during a traumatic event are commonly reported and are associated with later posttraumatic stress (Ozer et al., 2003), so a complainant’s report of feeling detached is consistent with known trauma responses. Dissociation is more common among people who have experienced trauma (Dalenberg et al., 2012), so a high dissociation score cannot be used to infer that a reported event did not occur, and one major review found dissociation not reliably associated with suggestibility. An accused’s amnesia claim may legitimately be tested, some claims are feigned, and genuine amnesia does not show the absence of intent at the time.

The research also counsels caution. Testimony that peritraumatic dissociation explains particular gaps in a complainant’s memory goes beyond what the research has established, because the link between dissociation and objectively measured fragmentation has not been established and reports of peritraumatic dissociation are retrospective and change over time (Bedard-Gilligan & Zoellner, 2012; Gauthier et al., 2025). Relying on a dissociative amnesia diagnosis to show that a delayed or recovered memory is accurate invites a Rule 702 challenge, given the weaknesses in case reports (Mangiulli, Otgaar, et al., 2022). Genuine amnesia also occurs in accused persons, and no test rules it out with certainty.

Special Issues for Defense

The research supports several propositions defense counsel can legitimately present. Some research associates dissociation with a greater tendency toward pseudo-memories, suggestibility, and fantasy proneness (Giesbrecht et al., 2008; Lynn et al., 2014); a major review did not find a reliable link with suggestibility (Dalenberg et al., 2012), so the evidence is contested, but the association may matter where a witness with high dissociation was exposed to suggestive interviewing or therapy. Many published reports of dissociative amnesia do not rule out ordinary forgetting or feigning, and subjective reports of amnesia can diverge from objective memory performance (Huntjens et al., 2003; Mangiulli, Otgaar, et al., 2022). For an accused, validity tests cannot rule out genuine amnesia, and an above-chance score is not evidence of feigning (Rubenzer, 2023).

The research also counsels caution about the limits that apply to the defense. The link between dissociation and suggestibility is contested and modest, and a high score does not show that a memory is false or that abuse did not occur. Trauma researchers report strong evidence linking trauma to dissociation, and the dispute should be presented as one. In Arizona, Mott bars expert evidence of a mental disorder short of insanity offered to negate mens rea, and a dissociative diagnosis offered for that purpose would likely be treated the same way, and in courts-martial, expert mental-condition evidence requires notice and engages the R.C.M. 706 process.

This paper is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. The author is a psychologist, not an attorney; summaries of law are general and must be verified against current authority or with a licensed attorney.

References

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Eisen, M. L., Goodman, G. S., Qin, J., Davis, S., & Crayton, J. (2007). Maltreated children’s memory: Accuracy, suggestibility, and psychopathology. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1275–1294. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1275

Gauthier, G. M., PeConga, E. K., Mohr, J. L., Feeny, N. C., & Zoellner, L. A. (2025). Prospective stability of memory for peritraumatic dissociation and anxiety: Replication and extension examining PTSD treatment modality and response. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 17(2), 429–437. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001790

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Legal Authorities

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999).

Logerquist v. McVey, 196 Ariz. 470, 1 P.3d 113 (2000).

State v. Chapple, 135 Ariz. 281, 660 P.2d 1208 (1983).

State v. Lindsey, 149 Ariz. 472, 720 P.2d 73 (1986).

State v. McClendon, 103 Ariz. 105, 437 P.2d 421 (1968) (amnesia and competency; the decision’s separate ruling on retrial for a greater offense was later rejected, State v. Maloney, 464 P.2d 793 (Ariz. 1970)).

State v. Mott, 187 Ariz. 536, 931 P.2d 1046 (1997).

State v. Nordstrom, 200 Ariz. 229, 25 P.3d 717 (2001).

United States v. Houser, 36 M.J. 392 (C.M.A. 1993).

Wilson v. United States, 391 F.2d 460 (D.C. Cir. 1968).

Fed. R. Evid. 702.

Ariz. R. Evid. 702.

Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004 (amending Ariz. R. Evid. 702, effective Jan. 1, 2024).

Mil. R. Evid. 702.

Mil. R. Evid. 1102.

Rule for Courts-Martial 701(b)(2).

Rule for Courts-Martial 706.

Rule for Courts-Martial 916(k).

Related topic papers: Recovered and Repressed Memory · Emotion, Stress, Trauma, and Memory · False Memory in Trauma and PTSD · Observation Evidence and Mental State · Hypnosis and Memory · Memory Expert Testimony

Related topics from Arizona Forensic Services: Alcohol Blackouts: Alcohol Blackout / Amnesia · Courts-Martial