dissociative

American  

[di-soh-see-uht-iv, di-soh-shee-ayt-iv, -suht-iv] / dɪˈsoʊ si ət ɪv, dɪˈsoʊ ʃiˌeɪt ɪv, -sət ɪv /

adjective

1. Psychiatry. relating to or exhibiting a condition in which a group of mental processes is split off from the main body of consciousness, as in amnesia or certain forms of hysteria.

2. Physical Chemistry. relating to, tending toward, or exhibiting the reversible resolution or decomposition of a complex substance into simpler components.

3. relating to a disjunction or separation between two or more things.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dissociative

Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist and professor emerita at Towson University who specializes in trauma and dissociative disorders, describes dissociation as “a kind of disconnection from yourself or your experience.”

From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026

Its subject is Hannah Upp, a young teacher prey to dissociative fugue states in which she forgets her own identity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

Conditions like dissociative identity disorder may dictate multiple support animals, and the growth in pet psychologists portends a burgeoning trend of emotionally affected pets needing their own support animals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

One of the main protagonists in “The Dark Tower” series, Susannah Dean, is a Black woman with dissociative identity disorder.

From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2025

Very few had taken to agriculture, for which, indeed, the dry soil was seldom fitted, and the half-nomadic life of stock-farmers, each pasturing his cattle over great tracts of country, confirmed their dissociative instincts.

From Impressions of South Africa by James Bryce, Viscount Bryce

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