> 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").
Childhood sexual abuse -- repeated and particularly egregious -- at
an early age, but CSA is supposedly not the only manner in which these
individuals are supposedly traumatized.
I wouldn't know how often these experiences are supposedly repressed
and to what extent.
> 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
I'm curious how this actually works. I'm not quite sure I understand,
but I am reasonably confident a therapist or two has misdiagnosed someone
and encouraged this sort of behavior.
I'm aware of a social worker in a nearby city who claims to have a high
case load of DID patients. The students at my institution who have worked
with her have rolled their collective eyes and offered true diagnoses
(e.g., borderline is a common preferred alternative), as well as testified
to this social worker's desperate need for attention in the therapeutic
community.
> 3) it's due to intentional fakery
I bet there's been a few -- hopefully a therapist would be astute enough
to
figure it out. Back in 1993 when Roseanne decided she was DID a
supervisor of mine remarked that while the actress' claims were dubious,
she did compliment Roseanne on her research and acting ability, saying
"She's got part of her role figured out."
> 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.
Theory 1 is interesting but pretty untestable. One version of theory 1
was explained to me this way (not that I necessarily accept it)...
A central component of DID revolves around a person's mental ability to
disassociate from the traumatic event.
The argument is that every person at one time or another has done a little
disassociating. If you have ever been in a car accident, robbed,
assaulted, or had some other trauma befall you, do you remember feeling as
if it wasn't really happening to you? ALmost as if you were watching it
happen to someone else?
A common feature of trauma is that the person talks about "feeling almost
outside of my body." A young woman I worked with whose uncle repeatedly
sodomized her said she felt completely numb. She felt like she was
standing
in the hallway.
Even skeptics of this explanation must admit that they've experienced
times of shock/numbeness invading their senses and temporarily blunting
them. Certainly if you've ever lost a loved one, you probably went
through some period of shock/denial. The body seems to shut down
somewhat, almost as if
your emotional switch gets temporarily set to "off."
Given that so many DID people supposedly are victimized in early
childhood,
it has also been proposed that since the child's reality testing is pretty
compromised at this stage of life (e.g., imaginary friends abound),
perhaps the
child's imagination allows other individuals to become real enough to step
in and take the suffering, or maybe just become real enough to offer some
kind of protection, or even an avenue for acting out the rage, sadness
that inevitably results from this kind of trauma.
Kinda weak, but what IF the child's "alters" become real enough because
the child needs them to be real. The painful experience of being who
he/she is
is at times lost in a fog, and in the fog another side emerges.
The core personality is splintered.
Does that make sense (whether you agree/disagree)?
I'd be interested in hearing more informed theoretical musings (or better,
any clinical experience).
> 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 agree. If the theory has any teeth, one could understand
the emergence of several individuals, maybe even a dozen, depending
on the severity of abuse, duration, other factors.
But hundreds if not thousands just seems implausible -- again if it's
true, each "alter" supposedly has a function, a role to play. What the
heck
does someone need several hundred for?
I wish I was more informed on this issue, but I would doubt how common
any DID person experiences a village in his/her own mind. The few case
studies I've read limited alters to a range of 5-15.
Assuming no additional chicanery on the patient's part...
either some therapists are delusional themselves, deceitful and desiring
of
publicity, or the therapist has done a bad job of splintering him/herself.
Jim Guinee, Ph.D.
University of Central Arkansas
P.S. Regarding Mike S' question (assuming it's real), is Doug Bernstein
still a member of this list? I seem to remember when he was at Illinois
there was a student who supposedly had MPD (now DID) and had cheated on a
test, blaming it
on an alter. I heard about it but left campus before it was adjudicated.
---
You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
