Dissociative Experiences Scale II DES-II
Dissociative Experiences Scale II DES-II overview
Creator and Context
The Dissociative Experiences Scale II (DES-II) is a 28 item self report screening measure for dissociative experiences.
It was published by Eva Carlson and Frank Putnam in 1993 as a revision of the original DES (Bernstein and Putnam, 1986). The revision replaced the original visual analogue line with an 11 point percentage scale to make scoring simpler. It is free for clinical and research use.
Presenting Conditions
The DES-II covers the breadth of dissociative experience. Factor analytic work most commonly identifies three areas:
Amnesia, including gaps in memory for events
Depersonalisation and derealisation
Absorption and imaginative involvement
An eight item subset, the DES Taxon, is used to index pathological dissociation.
Administration
Self administered. For each of the 28 experiences the person marks the percentage of the time it happens to them, from 0 to 100 percent in 10 percent increments. They are asked to exclude experiences that occur while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There is no recall window.
Desired Audience
Adults aged 18 and over. For adolescents use the A-DES, and for younger children the parent completed Child Dissociative Checklist.
The DES-II is a screening tool. Its practical value is in prompting a conversation that often does not happen otherwise, particularly in trauma and personality disorder presentations where dissociation is easy to miss and materially affects treatment planning and safety.
Considerations
This is a screen, not a diagnosis. A high score means assess further, not that a dissociative disorder is present.
Scores are elevated in PTSD, borderline personality disorder, psychotic disorders and substance use, so false positives are common.
Because the score is a mean of percentages, a small number of very high items can pull the total up.
There is no recall window, which limits its usefulness for tracking change over time.
The authors did not publish severity bands. Any mild, moderate and severe banding you see elsewhere is not author endorsed.
How to score the Dissociative Experiences Scale II DES-II
Conducting the assessment
The person rates all 28 items on the 0 to 100 percent scale in 10 percent steps.
Interpretation
The score is the mean of the 28 item percentages, giving a range of 0 to 100.
Carlson and Putnam (1993) recommend a cut off of 30 or higher as indicating possible dissociative psychopathology warranting further diagnostic assessment. In their review, a cut off of 30 yielded sensitivity of 74 percent and specificity of 80 percent for what was then called multiple personality disorder.
Clinical Considerations
Treat a score of 30 or above as a prompt for structured assessment, for example the SCID-D.
Look at the item pattern, not just the mean. Amnesia items carry more clinical weight than absorption items.
Consider dissociation when a person is not responding to otherwise well delivered trauma treatment.
Dissociative Experiences Scale II DES-II use cases
Screening for dissociative experiences in adults
Identifying who needs a fuller dissociative disorder assessment
Informing safety planning and treatment sequencing in trauma work
Research into dissociation
Category
Trauma
Research Summary
Carlson, E. B., & Putnam, F. W. (1993). An update on the Dissociative Experiences Scale. Dissociation, 6(1), 16 to 27.
Bernstein, E. M., & Putnam, F. W. (1986). Development, reliability, and validity of a dissociation scale. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174(12), 727 to 735.
van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Schuengel, C. (1996). The measurement of dissociation in normal and clinical populations: Meta analytic validation of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). Clinical Psychology Review, 16(5), 365 to 382.
Other Assessment Guides
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE)
Explore the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Assessment, its development, significance, and application in psychological practice. Understand how to calculate ACE scores and interpret results.
PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 PCL-5
A practitioner guide to the PCL-5, the 20 item DSM-5 aligned measure of PTSD symptom severity. Covers administration, scoring, the 31 to 33 screening range and how to track treatment response.
Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 PC-PTSD-5
A guide to the PC-PTSD-5, the five item primary care screen for PTSD. Covers administration, the cut point of 4, sex differences in performance and when to escalate to a full assessment.
Note on Assessment licensing
Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
