On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Lindsay J. Holland wrote:
> Of course everyone is entitled to his or her opinion about
> the existence of DID; however, I encourage those in doubt to
> research the topic. There are some top notch researchers in
> the area of DID: Bessle Van der Kolk, Frank Putnam, and
> Constance Dalenberg for starters.
I must demur against posing the question in the form "Does DID
exist?". It clearly does exist, in the sense that people
diagnosed with this condition exhibit an identifiable set of
behaviours, such as calling themselves by different names,
behaving in different ways, etc.
This isn't the question. The question is what is the best way to
explain it. There seem to be three major theories:
1) the theory that it's due to the development of "multiple
personalities" in response to repressed childhood sexual abuse
(this is the one that people mean when they asset that "DID
exists").
2) the sociocognitive theory (of Nicholas Spanos) that it's
due to cultural and therapist-induced influences which leads
the DID individual to learn to role-play the characteristics of
this condition
3) it's due to intentional fakery
I tend to favour (2) myself, and have the most difficulty in
accepting (1). I'm not even sure exactly what (1) is proposing,
especially its curious implication of possession by different
"entities" which somehow take control of the individual at
different times. The details of this process have never been
specified. Unlike the sociocognitive theory, this theory can't
explain why in recent years claims of multiple personalities
possessed by a single individual which were initially restricted
to a few at a time ("The three faces of Eve"), somehow exploded
into claims of hundreds, if not thousands of "alters". The
record, I believe, is an individual who claimed more than 4,500.
Other alters include "infants, television characters, and
demons...Satan and God...dogs, cats, lobsters [!], and stuffed
animals --even of people thousands of years old or from another
dimension" (Piper, 1998).
I second Lindsay's recommendation for people to research the
topic. I'd start with the work of Joan Acocella.
-Stephen
Acocella, J.(1998). The politics of hysteria. New Yorker, April 6
[or her book "Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality
Disorder"]
Spanos, N. (1994). Multiple identity enactments and multiple
personality disorder: a sociocognitive perspective.
Psychological Bulletin, 116, 143-65
[or his book Multiple identities & false memories : a
sociocognitive perspective ]
Piper, A. (1998). Multiple personality disorder: witchcraft
survives in the twentieth century. Skeptical Inquirer, May/
June
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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