http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v283n19/pdf/jbk0517.pdf Multiple Personality Creating Hysteria: Womenand Multiple Per-sonality Disorder, by Joan Acocella, 214 pp, $25, ISBN 0-7879-4794-6, San Francisco, Calif, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999. IN CREATING HYSTERIA,JOAN ACO-cella relates the modern history of mul-tiple personality disorder (MPD), which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. Acocella asks why the diag-nosis of MPD exploded from 1985 to 1995, then fell suddenly to the level of an unusual, rare disorder. At the risk of revealing too much of the plot, I will summarize the chronology of this medi-cal, psychological, and sociological thriller: 1957: Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley publish The Three Faces of Eve. The Academy Award-winning movie comes out the same year, and "Eve White," "Eve Black," and "Jane" capture the interest of the Ameri-can public. 1962: C. Henry Kempe and col-leagues publish the famous article "The Battered Child Syndrome" in JAMA. 1974: Flora Rheta Schreiber pub-lishes Sybil, the account of Dr Corne-lia Wilbur's diagnosis and treatment of a woman with MPD. Dr Wilbur thinks that Sybil's condition was caused by physical and sexual child abuse. The Emmy-winning television movie ap-pears in 1976, and Sybil becomes the most famous psychiatric patient in his-tory. In 1998, however, psychologist Robert Rieber asserts that Dr Wilbur in-duced Sybil to have MPD using hyp-nosis, sodium penthothal, and thera-peutic suggestion. Rieber bases his conclusion on long-forgotten audio-tapes of conversations between Wilbur and Schreiber. 1980: Lawrence Pazder, MD, and Michelle Smith publish Michelle Re-members, a mass-market book that kicks off the epidemic of satanic ritual abuse allegations. The MPD and ritual abuse movements overlap because many pa-tients have complaints attributed to both. The same year MPD is specifi-cally listed as a diagnosis in the Diag-nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition. The Rise of MPD: 1980-1995: After Sybil, the diagnosis of MPD changes from a rare to a commonplace event, with seminars, conferences, hundreds of scientific articles, and two compre-hensive textbooks on the topic. Aco-cella attributes the increased diagno-sis of MPD, especially among women, to the interaction of several factors. First are factors related to therapy by well-meaning but misguided clinicians, eg, psychotropic medication, especially benzodiazepines; hypnosis, "one of the central pillars supporting the MPD movement"; and guided imagery. Sec-ond are the media: magazines, news-papers, and television talk shows pro-mote "utterly unskeptical stories about MPD." Third are ideas with particular appeal to women: that unhappiness can be removed by making the right diag-nosis and recalling traumatic memo-ries and that revealing the abuse of fe-male children and addressing it would help promote political solidarity for women. Acocella also mentions the re-covery movement, the New Age move-ment, religious fundamentalism, popu-lar psychology, and the Internet as influences on the popularity of MPD. 1984: The new MPD enthusiasts found the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dis-sociation. Its journal, Dissociation,is published for several years. 1988: Ellen Bass and Laura Davis publish The Courage to Heal, and four years later Renee Frederickson pub-lishes Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery From Sexual Abuse. These self-help books are extremely successful. They present symptom checklists for readers to use in determining whether they were abused, even if they cannot remember abuse. They encourage thera-pists to use a variety of techniques- such as suggestion, hypnosis, dream work, and guided imagery-to help cli-ents recover their memories of abuse. 1989: Frank Putnam, MD, pub-lishes Diagnosis and Treatment of Mul-tiple Personality Disorder, and Collin Ross, MD, publishes Multiple Person-ality Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Fea-tures and Treatment. Both theorize that MPDis caused by trauma, usually child abuse, usually including sexual abuse. Both recommend the use of hypnotic techniques, such as hypnotic age re-gression, to flush out the alters. Dr Ross sometimes identifies hundreds of al-ters or personalities in a single pa-tient. The Fall of MPD: According to Aco-cella, the MPDcraze started to fizzle be-cause of several forces: public educa-tion through grassroots organizations like the False Memory Syndrome Foun-dation, criticism by professional orga-nizations and senior mental health pro-fessionals, and huge lawsuits against therapists for iatrogenic MPD. 1992: The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is established by Pamela and Peter Freyd, whose daughter claims that her therapist helped her recover memories of childhood abuse. 1993: Paul R. McHugh, MD, a long-time critic of MPD, recommends that the specialized units for treating dis-sociative identity disorder be closed and that therapists ignore alters and stop talking to them. Elizabeth Carlson sues Diane Humenansky, MD, her former therapist, and is awarded $2.4 mil-lion. Carlson claims that Humenan-sky induced her to have MPD. The dis-sociative identity disorder program at Spring Shadows Glen, a psychiatric hos-pital in Houston, is closed by the state of Texas. In 1997 several of the psy-chiatrists and psychologists involved in the program face criminal charges Multiple Personality Creating Hysteria: Womenand Multiple Per-sonality Disorder, by Joan Acocella, 214 pp, $25, ISBN 0-7879-4794-6, San Francisco, Calif, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999. IN CREATING HYSTERIA,JOAN ACO-cella relates the modern history of mul-tiple personality disorder (MPD), which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. Acocella asks why the diag-nosis of MPD exploded from 1985 to 1995, then fell suddenly to the level of an unusual, rare disorder. At the risk of revealing too much of the plot, I will summarize the chronology of this medi-cal, psychological, and sociological thriller: 1957: Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley publish The Three Faces of Eve. The Academy Award-winning movie comes out the same year, and "Eve White," "Eve Black," and "Jane" capture the interest of the Ameri-can public. 1962: C. Henry Kempe and col-leagues publish the famous article "The Battered Child Syndrome" in JAMA. 1974: Flora Rheta Schreiber pub-lishes Sybil, the account of Dr Corne-lia Wilbur's diagnosis and treatment of a woman with MPD. Dr Wilbur thinks that Sybil's condition was caused by physical and sexual child abuse. The Emmy-winning television movie ap-pears in 1976, and Sybil becomes the most famous psychiatric patient in his-tory. In 1998, however, psychologist Robert Rieber asserts that Dr Wilbur in-duced Sybil to have MPD using hyp-nosis, sodium penthothal, and thera-peutic suggestion. Rieber bases his conclusion on long-forgotten audio-tapes of conversations between Wilbur and Schreiber. 1980: Lawrence Pazder, MD, and Michelle Smith publish Michelle Re-members, a mass-market book that kicks off the epidemic of satanic ritual abuse allegations. The MPD and ritual abuse movements overlap because many pa-tients have complaints attributed to both. The same year MPD is specifi-cally listed as a diagnosis in the Diag-nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition. The Rise of MPD: 1980-1995: After Sybil, the diagnosis of MPD changes from a rare to a commonplace event, with seminars, conferences, hundreds of scientific articles, and two compre-hensive textbooks on the topic. Aco-cella attributes the increased diagno-sis of MPD, especially among women, to the interaction of several factors. First are factors related to therapy by well-meaning but misguided clinicians, eg, psychotropic medication, especially benzodiazepines; hypnosis, "one of the central pillars supporting the MPD movement"; and guided imagery. Sec-ond are the media: magazines, news-papers, and television talk shows pro-mote "utterly unskeptical stories about MPD." Third are ideas with particular appeal to women: that unhappiness can be removed by making the right diag-nosis and recalling traumatic memo-ries and that revealing the abuse of fe-male children and addressing it would help promote political solidarity for women. Acocella also mentions the re-covery movement, the New Age move-ment, religious fundamentalism, popu-lar psychology, and the Internet as influences on the popularity of MPD. 1984: The new MPD enthusiasts found the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dis-sociation. Its journal, Dissociation,is published for several years. 1988: Ellen Bass and Laura Davis publish The Courage to Heal, and four years later Renee Frederickson pub-lishes Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery From Sexual Abuse. These self-help books are extremely successful. They present symptom checklists for readers to use in determining whether they were abused, even if they cannot remember abuse. They encourage thera-pists to use a variety of techniques- such as suggestion, hypnosis, dream work, and guided imagery-to help cli-ents recover their memories of abuse. 1989: Frank Putnam, MD, pub-lishes Diagnosis and Treatment of Mul-tiple Personality Disorder, and Collin Ross, MD, publishes Multiple Person-ality Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Fea-tures and Treatment. Both theorize that MPDis caused by trauma, usually child abuse, usually including sexual abuse. Both recommend the use of hypnotic techniques, such as hypnotic age re-gression, to flush out the alters. Dr Ross sometimes identifies hundreds of al-ters or personalities in a single pa-tient. The Fall of MPD: According to Aco-cella, the MPDcraze started to fizzle be-cause of several forces: public educa-tion through grassroots organizations like the False Memory Syndrome Foun-dation, criticism by professional orga-nizations and senior mental health pro-fessionals, and huge lawsuits against therapists for iatrogenic MPD. 1992: The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is established by Pamela and Peter Freyd, whose daughter claims that her therapist helped her recover memories of childhood abuse. 1993: Paul R. McHugh, MD, a long-time critic of MPD, recommends that the specialized units for treating dis-sociative identity disorder be closed and that therapists ignore alters and stop talking to them. Elizabeth Carlson sues Diane Humenansky, MD, her former therapist, and is awarded $2.4 mil-lion. Carlson claims that Humenan-sky induced her to have MPD. The dis-sociative identity disorder program at Spring Shadows Glen, a psychiatric hos-pital in Houston, is closed by the state of Texas. In 1997 several of the psy-chiatrists and psychologists involved in the program face criminal charges in-Books, Journals, New Media Section Editor: Harriet S. Meyer, MD, Contributing Editor, JAMA; Jonathan D. Eldredge, MLS, PhD, University of New Mexico, Health Sciences Center Library, Journal Review Editor; ad-viser for new media, Robert Hogan, MD, San Diego. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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