Although there have been eight descriptive studies on patients with psychogenic amnesia between 1935 and 1962, this is the first such study in thirty years. In most cases the amnesia was selective, chronic, and not of sudden onset. A few cases were repetitive. There were multiple stressful psychological precipitants. There were many similarities to patients with multiple personality disorder, providing further proof that dissociative disorders occur along a dissociative spectrum.
Psychogenic amnesia is probably the most common dissociative disorder.
It is frequently overlooked because symptoms are subtle, and other primary psychiatric diagnoses are often present.