Psychogenic amnesia or dissociative amnesia is a  memory disorder characterized by sudden retrograde episodic memory loss, said to occur for a period of time ranging from hours to years to decades. More recently, "dissociative amnesia" has been defined as a dissociative disorder "characterized by retrospectively reported memory gaps. These gaps involve an inability to recall personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature." In a change from the DSM-IV to the DSM-5, dissociative fugue is now  subsumed under dissociative amnesia.The atypical clinical syndrome of the memory disorder (as opposed to organic amnesia) is that a person with psychogenic amnesia is profoundly unable to remember personal information about themselves; there is a lack of conscious self-knowledge which affects even simple self-knowledge, such as who they are. Psychogenic amnesia is distinguished from organic amnesia in that it is supposed to result from a nonorganic cause: no structural brain damage or brain lesion should be evident but some form of psychological stress should precipitate the amnesia, however psychogenic amnesia as a memory disorder is controversial. Definition
Psychogenic amnesia is the presence of retrograde amnesia (the inability to retrieve stored memories leading up to the onset of amnesia), and an absence of anterograde amnesia (the inability to form new long term memories). Access to episodic memory can be impeded, while the degree of impairment to short term memory, semantic memory and procedural memory is thought to vary among cases.
If no motive for the amnesia was immediately apparent, deeper motives were usually sought by questioning the patient more intensely, often in conjunction with hypnosis and truth drugs. In many cases, however, patients were found to spontaneously recover from their amnesia on their own accord so no treatment was required. In popular culture
Psychogenic amnesia is a common fictional plot device in many films, books and other media. Examples include William Shakespeares King Lear, who experienced amnesia and madness following a betrayal by his daughters; and the title character Nina in Nicolas Dalayracs 1786 opera. In the 2009 Televisa-produced telenovela Sortilegio, the main female protagonist (Jacqueline Bracamontes) is kidnapped and her memory is wiped using drugs. In OMORI, one of the main characters (Sunny) has dissociative amnesia. In the 2009 Breaking Bad television programs second season episode Bit by a Dead Bee, the main protagonist, Walter White, fakes a fugue state to account for his whereabouts. See also
Effects of stress on memory
Depersonalization
Dissociative disorders

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