DISSOCIATION

noun Date: 1611 the act or process of dissociating ; the state of being dissociated: as, the process by which a chemical combination breaks up into simpler constituents, the separation of whole segments of the personality (as in multiple personality disorder) or of discrete mental processes (as in the schizophrenias) from the mainstream of consciousness or of behavior, the property inherent in some biological stocks (as of certain bacteria) of differentiating into two or more distinct and relatively permanent strains, dissociative adjective