nesia for a non-epileptic seizure).
Seizure disorders. Individuals with dissociative identity disorder may present with sei-
zurelike symptoms and behaviors that resemb le complex partial seizures with temporal
lobe foci. These include déjà vu, jamais vu, de personalization, derea lization, out-of-body
experiences, amnesia, disruptions of consci ousness, hallucinations, and other intrusion
phenomena of sensation, affect, and thought . Normal electroencep halographic findings,
including telemetry, differenti ate non-epileptic seiz ures from the seizurelike symptoms of
dissociative identity disorder. Also, individua ls with dissociative identity disorder obtain
very high dissociation scores, whereas indivi duals with complex partial seizures do not.
Factitious disorder and malingering. Individuals who feign dissociative identity disor-
der do not report the subtle symptoms of intr usion characteristic of the disorder; instead
they tend to overreport well-publicized symp toms of the disorder, such as dissociative
amnesia, while underreporting less-publicized  comorbid symptoms, such as depression.
Individuals who feign dissociative identity d isorder tend to be relatively undisturbed by
or may even seem to enjoy “having” the diso rder. In contrast, individuals with genuine
dissociative identity disorder tend to be ashamed of and overwhelmed by their symptoms
and to underreport their symptoms or deny th eir condition. Sequential observation, cor-
roborating history, and intensive psycho metric and psychological assessment may be
helpful in assessment.
Individuals who malinger dissociative identity  disorder usually create limited, stereo-
typed alternate identities, with feigned amnesia, related to the events for which gain is