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Diagnosis of dissociative disorders is by no means straightforward, mainly due to a lack of training and knowledge. This article explains how diagnosis is made.

There are a number of diagnostic tools available for assessing dissociative disorders. This article lists the principle ones along with descriptions, purpose and methods used.

Dissociative disorders appear as diagnostic categorisations in both the American-based DSM-5 produced by the American Psychological Association (APA, 2013), and the other ‘diagnostic’ bible used more widely in Europe, the World Health Organisation’s ICD-10.

DDNOS is seen by many people as a ‘not yet’ or ‘a not quite’ version of dissociative identity disorder and although it is supposed to be a ‘residual category’ and only given to a few people, in fact the vast majority of people diagnosed with a dissociative disorder fall into this category.

Who should pay for treatment for survivors of abuse who have gone on to develop a dissociative disorder? For many conditions the expectation would be that help would be available on the NHS, but this is rarely the case for conditions arising from trauma.