PROF MICHAEL KOPELMAN ON ‘PSYCHOGENC AMNESIA: SYNDROMES, OUTCOME, AND PATTERNS OF RETROGRADE AMNESIA’

Psychogenic amnesia: Syndromes, outcome and patterns of retrograde amnesia 

Abstract: Psychogenic amnesia – also known (in the books) as ‘dissociative amnesia’, and in some quarters as ‘functional amnesia’ – can be ‘global’, encompassing the whole of a person’s life and sometimes the sense of personal identity, or ‘situation-specific’, as in PTSD or (sometimes) the victims or perpetrators of offences. The present talk will focus mainly on the ‘global’ types, as in psychogenic fugue or focal retrograde amnesia. Case examples will be presented, as will the findings in a series of 56 cases, and these will be reviewed in the light of the literature. It will be very much a pragmatist’s eye view, which the speaker trusts will be of interest to neuropsychoanalysts.

Bio: Michael Kopelman is Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychiatry, King’s College London (Institute of Psychiatry), and formerly ran a Neuropsychiatry and Memory Disorders Clinic at St Thomas’s Hospital. He has been co-editor/co-author of  The Handbook of Memory Disorders, 2002; Lishman’s Organic Psychiatry, 4th Edition, 2009; and Forensic Neuropsychology in Practice, 2009. He is past-President of the British Neuropsychological Society, past-President of the International Neuropsychiatric Association, and past-President of British Academy of Forensic Sciences. He is President-elect of the International Neuropsychological Society. His research is on all aspects of memory disorders, and he was a founder member of the Memory Disorders Research Society. He was awarded a Career Achievement award by the International Neuropsychological Society in 2013.

Thursday, November 3, 2016, 6 pm, at UCL, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1 (north corner), in room 305 on the third floor; this event is free (places are limited).

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