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Multiple Personality Disorder

OldTimeRadio said:
As I wrote in some detail earlier in this thread, these is evidence that "multiple personalities" are the NORM. Most of us never experience this as a disorder (or realize the condition at all), because our varying personalities get along so well.

Nice analogy, but with the greatest respect I think it's like saying that psychotic depression is related to feeling a little bit blue. The two may be related, but one cannot be understood in the context of the other (IMO).
 
I dunno, I think I'll stick with the opinion which opened the thread that BRF so kindly linked us to: that Louis Wain
specialized in cheesy "cute" pictures of cats, but as he developed a mental disorder his depictions became more and more abstract (and more artistically brilliant)....

But I've also read that Wain's financial and business manager, who hamfistedly controlled both the quantity and content of his artistic content, was his own hopelessly overbearing sister.

According to this information Wain feigned - or at least exaggerated - his mental disorder in order to escape from her and draw and painted what he wanted.
 
In the first MPD classic THE THREE FACES OF EVE we learn that Eve's Multiple Personalities were originally triggered by the fact that at age three she had been forced to kiss her dead grandmother "goodbye" as she lay in her coffin.

I've never been entirely satisfied.

Now for my money that's a disgusting and unhappy custom, and it would probably have done a job on me at age three - or at age 33 for that matter. Even so, the custom seems common in some cultures and geographical areas (or at least was formerly).

So the question arises - why weren't there THOUSANDS of MPD cases among those peoples?

did/mpd is characteristic of not just abuse by the primary carer (usually the mother) but also of an environment in which there's a complete lack of affection for the child, apparently even some positive adult input can have a restorative effect (or is poss. presenting a consistent adult model for the child to attach to).

the etiology of the illness is essentially that multiple incompatable models of mother create multiple incompatable realities for the child, and a 'split' is created to deal with each reality, with a view to the child being able to preserve on some level, in some part, a view of the mother that's adequate enough for the child to survive. at least that's how my therapist explained it to me.

haven't read Three Faces of Eve, though i can't say i'm too impressed with the 'dead grandmother' explanation, at least not in isolation, but i guess if it happened in a context where it was traumatic enough, it might leave the child believing there was another 'evil' mother who made her do it, and say a 3rd mother who pretended nothing had happened... how does that sit with the book?


Actually i only came to bump the thread up to drop in a couple of did/mpd related t-shirts i came across... one suspects more likely to be worn by bored teenagers who think it's cool to pretend to be mentally ill...

My Other Personality Can Beat Up Your Other Personality and the rather wonderful Sybil Was Framed

24633593_240x240_Front.jpg


79980145v1_150x150_Front_Color-Blac.jpg
 
The problem with the "refrigerator mother" theory for the onset and progress of both MPD and schizophrenia is that all too often the psychiatrist-produced case "biographies" of the patient are slanted to agree with the theory.
 
but do we have any better theories? and aren't psychiatrist produced anythings (including dsm iv) slanted to agree with their theories? or at least the dominant paradyme for that area?
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
but do we have any better theories?

Does it matter? A wholly fallacious theory which destroys families through its very falsity, is much worse than no theory at aLL.
 
Does it matter? A wholly fallacious theory which destroys families through its very falsity, is much worse than no theory at aLL.

i'm not aware that the theory's been proven unequivically fallacious, nor am i suggesting that it's been proven unequivically true, beyond that, it appears to be a matter of opinion, on which we differ...

and as i happen to agree with the above paradyme, i wouldn't agree that it destroys families so much as that i'd say it was the deeds that created the illness that destroyed the family, and even then, it isn't a foregone conclusion... i've certainly known people who'd disowned and/or reported their families to the police for abuse that they could remember, long before they were diagnosed with did or discovered that they had issues with repressed memories, and also people who have gone on to attempt some kind of reconcilliation afterwards in spite of it all... it's a lot less clear cut than a lot of the PR around dissociation and 'false memories' would suggest...
 
I have personally seen families damaged by having warm, nurturing mothers branded "refrigerator mothers" to make the case details agree with preconceived theory.
 
How do you know that they were warm, nurturing mothers? How do you know what they were like when you weren't there?
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
How do you know that they were warm, nurturing mothers?

Because I spent a great deal of time around them and am able to observe.

Besides, the same observations were made by their husbands, children (including the operative one), siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, neighbors....even by their in-laws.

These women were as warm as loaves of bread in a toaster oven, but HAD to be branded as "refrigerator mothers" in order to hammer the facts into place to agree with preconceived theory. Where is Charles Fort when nwe NEED him?

How do you know what they were like when you weren't there?

See above.

P. S. In any case, the university faculty psychologist I know best (he's a fellow Old Time Radio historian and archivist) informs me that the entire "refrigerator mother" theory is now "nearly as obsolete as eight-track players and just about as missed."
 
theredmeanie said:
OldTimeRadio said:
As I wrote in some detail earlier in this thread, these is evidence that "multiple personalities" are the NORM. Most of us never experience this as a disorder (or realize the condition at all), because our varying personalities get along so well.

Nice analogy, but with the greatest respect I think it's like saying that psychotic depression is related to feeling a little bit blue. The two may be related, but one cannot be understood in the context of the other (IMO).

They're more related than you might think. "Feeling blue" is a shadow syndrome of psychotic depression, as "moodiness" is of manic-depressive psychosis. Studying the minor mental glitches which dog us all has given great insights into the major psychoses.
 
Because I spent a great deal of time around them and am able to observe.

Besides, the same observations were made by their husbands, children (including the operative one), siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, neighbors....even by their in-laws.

Without knowing what goes on in private though, you don't know what the context for your or other peoples observations were, relative to the context of the person making the claims of abuse.

Since we're getting anecdotal here, i'll share my own experiences, of a mother who was capable of being sadistic as hell, and had no problem terrorising and battering me for her own amusement (and though she appeared out of control, somehow always managed to land blows to the side of the head, where it wouldn't show).

We're a neighbour or friend to call round while such a thing was going on, she'd suddenly be all smiley and sweetless and light, and what might have appeared as warm and loving to them, was to me terrifying and disingeneous. I'd have acted real normal 'cos it was more than my life was worth not to, and when the neighbour went away, had you mentioned the matter later, they'd have sworn that 'oh yes, i went round and everything was just fine'

It's one of the major problems that abuse survivors have in being taken seriously, because most people simply cannot believe that someone can seem so lovely to them, and yet could be capable of egregeous acts of cruelty in private. Even when there's nothing physically impossible about what's taken place, people just don't want to believe that it could have, or that they could be that wrong about someone :(

But that said, even if you do know of anecdotal cases where we accept that there was a tragic mistake, i don't see that this by default renders all similar cases suspect, it only proves, like my comments above, that sometimes such things do happen, and not that they necessarily have or haven't happened in any other instance.

The bottom line, whether we're coming at this from the pro or anti side, is that only the perps and victims (or alleged perps and alleged victims if you like) actually know unequivically what happened, and one of those groups is rarely if ever going to own up to it i.e. they will protest their innocence vehemently, regardless of whether they're guilty or not.


P. S. In any case, the university faculty psychologist I know best (he's a fellow Old Time Radio historian and archivist) informs me that the entire "refrigerator mother" theory is now "nearly as obsolete as eight-track players and just about as missed."

Do you have some cites for that, as you're presenting it as accepted theory?
 
The norm

As for the norm, Fourth Way teachings say we are "normally" (quoted because it's said therein we can attain and should be in a unified state) split into perhaps many hundreds of "I"s, and these may form "personalities", any being in charge at one moment.

These "I"s may be unaware of the others and we protect ourselves from seeing our inconsistencies by way of "buffers". For instance, a person who believes he is never late, may continually be late, yet when questioned state "Nonsense! I'm never late." - this is a buffer.

So how can it be that these "I"s that are unaware of each other can exist and yet we act in a seemingly unified way? Perhaps due to the nature of memory - or rather whether a given "I" or "personality" has access to memory shared by the others.

It would seem that inconsistencies between "I"s become apparent when either "buffers" are noticed or a true objective look at self occurs (which is difficult, since you need to be in an "I" that has that perspective, rather than a subordinate). Cases that are labeled medical conditions may be those where the typical personality to memory relations are changed, i.e. when a personality has its own separate memory store (no conscious recall) or when there is atypical recall - unusually high noticing of other personalities that would otherwise be called "in the subconcious" or "fantasy".

I'd say in our "normal" education, there's always a split into two main personalities by way of creation of the ego (as we are fed inconsistent rules versus behaviours - simply, we are taught deception). This is definitely considered "normal". However, should the "gap" between these become so extreme that some of the "thoughts" of other personalities become perceived as external, we get psychosis. The Divided Self, by R.D. Laing is an interesting read regarding this. This is, of course, not regarded as "normal".

So perhaps the possibility of division of memory is the key? This certainly seems to be the implication regarding mind control "altars" and from trauma.

I have had occasion to witness completely conflicting memories simultaneously, both feeling valid and yet one appearing a while after the other also noticed the following (although it's getting off topic):

After I awake I recall a certain amount of dream data, diminishing with time. I get glimpses of a certain scene and ponder what it was about to no avail. However, upon resting and slipping back into the dream world I often get an "oh yeah!" reaction as it seems a vista of the "dream world memory" opens up again and the "normal world memory" store recedes.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Without knowing what goes on in private though, you don't know what the context for your or other peoples observations were, relative to the context of the person making the claims of abuse.

You are of course correct. But short of raising all children under bright lights in communes, where they can be observed by the authorities 24 hours a day, I know of no perfect solution. (And who, of course, would watch the authorities?)

Since we're getting anecdotal here, i'll share my own experiences, of a mother who was capable of being sadistic as hell, and had no problem terrorising and battering me for her own amusement (and though she appeared out of control, somehow always managed to land blows to the side of the head, where it wouldn't show).

We're a neighbour or friend to call round while such a thing was going on, she'd suddenly be all smiley and sweetless and light, and what might have appeared as warm and loving to them, was to me terrifying and disingeneous. I'd have acted real normal 'cos it was more than my life was worth not to, and when the neighbour went away, had you mentioned the matter later, they'd have sworn that 'oh yes, i went round and everything was just fine'

It's one of the major problems that abuse survivors have in being taken seriously, because most people simply cannot believe that someone can seem so lovely to them, and yet could be capable of egregeous acts of cruelty in private. Even when there's nothing physically impossible about what's taken place, people just don't want to believe that it could have, or that they could be that wrong about someone :(

But that said, even if you do know of anecdotal cases where we accept that there was a tragic mistake, i don't see that this by default renders all similar cases suspect, it only proves, like my comments above, that sometimes such things do happen, and not that they necessarily have or haven't happened in any other instance.

The bottom line, whether we're coming at this from the pro or anti side, is that only the perps and victims (or alleged perps and alleged victims if you like) actually know unequivically what happened, and one of those groups is rarely if ever going to own up to it i.e. they will protest their innocence vehemently, regardless of whether they're guilty or not.

Thank you for sharing this. I did not mean to indicate there there are no cold and unfeeliong or even cruel and evil mothers. But my understanding is that children so raised tend to develope various of the spectrum neuroses rather than either autism or schizophrenia.


P. S. In any case, the university faculty psychologist I know best (he's a fellow Old Time Radio historian and archivist) informs me that the entire "refrigerator mother" theory is now "nearly as obsolete as eight-track players and just about as missed."

Do you have some cites for that, as you're presenting it as accepted theory?

No, only that it was told to me rather matter-of-factly by a university psychologist. However, when I've mentioned this to the OCD/depression support group I co-lead other members have told me that their therapists have said the same thing to them.
 
BRF, I brought this up again at my OCD-Depression support group just this evening (around 90 minutes ago) and everyone who commented believed the theory to be "obsolete" and "passe." The reasons for its abandonment were pretty much the ones I've already given here.

So I wonder if the Refrigerator Mother theory might be largely defunct in the States but still current in Britain?
 
I don't know about in Britain, but I believe it is pretty much said to be untrue here in the U.S. (at least with Autism.....don't know about Schizophrenia.) I've been told time and time again throughout my classes how this used to be a widely accepted theory but that it's been shown to be ridiculous and false and all it accomplishes is destroying families.

I personally, agree that autism is not caused by the way a child grows up. Parenting can certainly contribute to how well a child with autism succeeds. A child with autism may be on the low end of the spectrum instead of the medium area because of bad parenting, (not that all autistic children on the low end have bad parents, I'm not saying that), however, I believe the cause is biological.


EDIT: I'm going to have to agree that MPD is often cause by traumatic experiences, likely abuse. From what I've read (I'll admit, not a whole lot), it seems that it is often brought on because a child cannot deal with something that happened to him/her. The child then creates another personality that is better able to emotionally handle the situation.
 
You are of course correct. But short of raising all children under bright lights in communes, where they can be observed by the authorities 24 hours a day, I know of no perfect solution. (And who, of course, would watch the authorities?)

I wasn't suggesting anything as such, so much as being circumspect that it can be dangerous to make assumptions, based on what we like to think goes on in private.

Thank you for sharing this. I did not mean to indicate there there are no cold and unfeeliong or even cruel and evil mothers. But my understanding is that children so raised tend to develope various of the spectrum neuroses rather than either autism or schizophrenia.

I'm not sure where autism or schizophrenia came into this from. As far as i'm aware, the current paradime has both down as purely biological...

BRF, I brought this up again at my OCD-Depression support group just this evening (around 90 minutes ago) and everyone who commented believed the theory to be "obsolete" and "passe." The reasons for its abandonment were pretty much the ones I've already given here.

So I wonder if the Refrigerator Mother theory might be largely defunct in the States but still current in Britain?

I'll confess to not having heard the model i described called the 'refrigerator mother' model before, and nor do i think it's a particularly accurate title (as the damage isn't caused by the mother being cold per se, so much as the fact that she chooses to abuse) for it, but that said, doing a websearch for 'refrigerator mother' brings up only 3 pages of hits, all referential to autism, not did/mpd.

I think you might have got your models mixed up a bit there? Can we possibly leave autism/schizo out of this, not sure bringing those up is doing much besides confusing things.

'Refrigerator mothers' aside, as far as i'm aware, the trauma based model for did is the currently accepted one, at least, i know quite a few people with did on other boards (mostly in the us, but also the uk) who all claim a history of extreme abuse, and who are being treated within the context of that.

While there is some opposition to this model, and particularly vehemently in some areas (particularly with supporters of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation), there approach is largely one of not so much denying a trauma basis for did, so much as denying that the condition exists at all.
 
RainyOcean said:
I've been told time and time again throughout my classes how this used to be a widely accepted theory but that it's been shown to be ridiculous and false and all it accomplishes is destroying families.

Thank you!
 
Therapist 'had sex with split personalities patient's other self'

A therapist has been accused of taking advantage of a patient with a split personality - using one of her alter egos for sex, another to be his cleaner and a third to lend him cash for holidays.

When confronted by his alleged victim he refused to comment, saying he had a duty of confidentiality to her other personalities.

The German woman, Monika Mirte, 44, had gone to qualified psychotherapist Peter Blaeker, 43, after she was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Much of

the time Miss Mirte was in control, but sometimes she became her other personalities, 'Kathrin', 'Finja' and 'Leonie'.

She alleges that Blaeker used his knowledge of her condition to use her for sex, housework and loans. If convicted he faces up to five years in jail.

Miss Mirte said: 'It is like there is more than one person in my head and when one of the others is in control, I always have no memory of what happened when I return.

'I found out there were certain personalities he favoured, and he used them to fulfil his wishes.

'He used Kathrin for sex and Finja to do the shopping and pay for it, while Leonie gave him money to travel on holidays to Mallorca and Sylt (a popular German tourist island).'

It is unclear how Miss Mirte became suspicious about her 'treatment' but she eventually confronted Blaeker.

She claims the therapist told her he would not discuss the matter because he had a duty of confidentiality to his patients, including her other personalities.

Miss Mirte later gave details to police which are being studied by prosecutors in Cologne.

Spokesman Dr Gunther Feld said they were considering charges of sexual abuse under duress. They were also investigating possible fraud.

Miss Mirte's lawyer, Christine Andrae, said: 'So far there are numerous leads to show that the therapist made use of my client's weakness.'

Blaeker has refused to comment while the case is being investigated.

Psychologist Dr Christian Luedke said: 'It is a unique case but it is possible.

'If you know a person has multiple personalities, you can deal with the personality you want by calling that person by name until they take control.

'You can then replace them with another personality by calling the next personality by name.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... 6&ito=1490
 
I have no use at all for professional psychotherapists who abuse patients, but let's not forget that Multiple Personality Disorder is a neurosis. It is NOT a psychosis!

Because of this, neurotics are considered legally responsible for their actions, and to seduce any one MPD personality is to in effect receive permission from all.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, we had two different men charged with rape here in Cincinnati for seducing the "promiscuous" personality of two different MPD women. But both cases totally fell apart before trial for the reason cited above.

That's why when neurotics commit crimes (arson, kleptomania and so forth) they are sent to prison and not to the asylum.

P. S. I have a very dear friend who while she does not have distinct personalities, as such, certainly has two very separate moods, which she herself describes as "the showgirl and the nun." Although I can never be quite certain as to which one I'll get, I've come to love each of them in their own special way.

But if I seduce the "showgirl" (or she seduces me), should the "nun" be able to charge me with rape?
 
The DSM IV criteria classes Dissociative Identity Disorder as a Dissociative Disorder, not as a neurosis, which is in itself an anachronistic terminology.

Some mental health professionals over here (certainly the psych my therapist works under) view DID as an advanced form of borderline / emotionally unstable personality disorder, though it's a view that i disagree with, as personally i think that it's both a downgrading of the DID diagnosis and a conflation of sorts with a diagnosis that's become quite perjorative in itself, and that if we're accepting (as she is) a trauma basis for bpd and the presence of very strong dissociative features (in the absense of a duel diagnosis) then strictly speaking bpd belongs with ptsd as a dissociative disorder, and not as a personality disorder. But then that all seem to me like an area where DSM IV would really benefit from having a few pages torn out and rewritten.

As to whether people with DID are responsible for their own actions, i'd say yes for almost all intents and purposes, but no as an absolute... it's an illness where i think at rare times it does come to the thin end of the wedge, so to speak, in terms of distorted thought, delusions and/or hallucinations, and where it's worth making the distinction between what could reasonably have been managed, and what could not...

and to seduce any one MPD personality is to in effect receive permission from all.

i think it's slightly different in this instance, in terms of his culpability, in as much as that this wasn't a case of what might be considered a strange kind of misunderstanding between two people with very different self perceptions (and a tragic misunderstanding for one of them), but an instance where he knew exactly what he was doing and purposely manipulated her 'system' (of personalities) with a view to sexual and financial exploitation... some of her parts may have consented, which in itself makes more sense when you bear in mind that many of them exist specifically to take use/abuse, but she still may have had no chance overarchingly of stopping him...

Spokesman Dr Gunther Feld said they were considering charges of sexual abuse under duress. They were also investigating possible fraud.

In the circumstances, i think that's entirely reasonable.

From her end though, it's still a very terrible case of one in, all in :(
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
....neurosis, which is in itself an anachronistic terminology.

Mainly because we neurotics have let the term be robbed from us.

But among American patient-directed support groups for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bi-Polar Disorder and Clinical Depression, among the other spectrum disorders, "neurosis" is still very much the standard term of reference.
 
“Sybil Exposed”: Memory, lies and therapy

How three women fabricated the most famous case of multiple personality disorder and damaged thousands of lives

Debbie Nathan’s “Sybil Exposed” is about psychiatric fads, outrageous therapeutic malpractice, thwarted ambition run amok, and several other subjects, but above all, it is a book about a book. Specifically, that book is “Sybil,” purportedly the true story of a woman with 16 personalities. First published in 1973, “Sybil” remains in print after selling over 6 million copies in the U.S. alone.

A work of high Midwestern gothic trash, “Sybil” might have been purpose-built to enthrall 14-year-old girls of morbid temperament (which is probably the majority of 14-year-old girls, come to think of it). I would not be surprised to learn that it is circulated as avidly on middle-school playgrounds today as it was in my own youth. My sisters, my friends and I all devoured it, discussing its heroine’s baroque sufferings in shocked whispers before promptly forgetting all about it until the TV movie starring Sally Field came along.

That should have been the end of “Sybil,” another flash-in-the-pan “true life” paperback shocker that people sorta believe but mostly not — rather like “The Amityville Horror.” Instead, the book, written by journalist Flora Rheta Schreiber, became the catalyst for a psychotherapeutic movement that ruined many lives, beginning with the woman whose story it claims to tell.

Nathan, a reporter who was the first to challenge the nationwide panic over the “ritual sex abuse” of children in the 1980s, was already familiar with the damage caused by the enormous upsurge in diagnoses of multiple personality disorder linked to the same scare. In “Sybil Exposed” she has painstakingly pieced together the most comprehensive account yet of the case that did so much to promote that diagnosis — that of Shirley Ardell Mason, the woman on whom the character Sybil was based. Mason; her psychiatrist, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur; and Schreiber were the three principals in an enterprise they called Sybil Inc., founded on a precarious yet strangely long-lived melange of fabrications, exaggerations and downright lies.

Full article at
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/16/sybil_e ... singleton/
 
I remember seeing the Sybil miniseries, and most of the frisson of that came from the idea that it was true. Now it's been exposed, it seems it has a lot to answer for, but I wonder how much impact these revelations that it was made up will have. Just about everyone knows the idea of MPD thanks to that original book, and it's an idea that will be hard to dispel.
 
“Sybil,” the shocking true story of a woman shattered into 16 distinct personalities that helped her to dig up repressed memories of monstrous childhood sexual abuse, sold nearly 7 million copies when it was published in 1973. A serialized version ran in newspapers around the nation as readers gasped at “scenes of Sybil’s demented mother defecating on lawns, conducting lesbian orgies and raping her daughter with kitchen utensils. This kind of sex and perversion had never before been published on the ‘women’s’ pages,” writes author Debbie Nathan in a new book. “Sybil” was adapted into an Emmy-winning 1976 TV miniseries starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward that was viewed by one-fifth of the American public.

And it was an utter fraud.

'Sybil' is one big psych-out

"Sybil" was the supposedly true story of a girl whose horribly traumatic childhood caused her to manifest sixteen different personalities. Interviews with her were like demonic exorcisms, except the psychologist was taking on sixteen different demons at once, or maybe one demon with really potent multi-tasking capabilities. Her “real-life” drama, filled with lurid details of abuse, fit neatly into the nightmare-child vibe that illuminated so much of the decade’s pop fiction. A lot of unholy, unhinged, and undead little girls leered from paperback shelves in those days.

In Sunday’s New York Post, Kyle Smith? reviewed a “darkly absurd” new book called “Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case,” which reveals the whole story was cooked up by a somewhat disturbed young woman named Shirley Mason, an enterprising psychiatrist with a well-stocked medicine cabinet, and a trashy journalist

A celebrated story of the Seventies was a total fraud.
 
Split personality crime: who is guilty?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... uilty.html?

05 July 2012 by Jessica Hamzelou
Magazine issue 2872.

For similar stories, visit the Crime and Forensics , Mental Health and The Human Brain Topic Guides
JOHN WOODS was a smart college student in a loving relationship. That was until he saw an unfamiliar footprint on his girlfriend's carpet. The couple argued, and Woods suffocated her. He also stabbed her roommate to death when she tried to intervene.

But Woods escaped the death penalty. The court took into account a psychiatric assessment performed after the crime, which concluded that Woods had multiple personality disorder - formally known as dissociative identity disorder (DID). The crime was not the work of John, but of his insane "alter", Ron.

Bill Greene was also diagnosed with DID following his arrest for kidnapping - but the information was considered inadmissible in court.

Two cases involving DID, two different outcomes. The reason for the contrast is simple: the scientific community has long struggled to establish whether DID is a real condition or simply the work of an overactive imagination. "Washington state [where Greene was tried] said DID wasn't scientifically accepted enough to be considered," says Elyn Saks, who specialises in law and mental health at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

A new study could be an important step towards demonstrating that the disorder is real. As such, it might persuade more judges to allow a DID diagnosis to be given as evidence.

People diagnosed with DID have two or more personalities that reveal themselves at separate times. The personalities may not even be aware of each other's existence. "One body holds different identity states that have their own way of thinking about themselves and the environment," says Simone Reinders at Kings College London. The personalities - which can access different sets of memories, and be different ages and genders - are thought to arise as a result of trauma experienced at a young age.

"All of the DID patients I have met report abuse before the age of 4 - the age at which most children develop a distinction between the self and others," says John Morton, who studies memory in DID at University College London. "Normally the abuser is a family member or caregiver, so the children develop two interpretations of the same person - one as a caregiver and one as an abuser. These two have to be kept separate." Young children are thought to cope by developing different personalities - one to deal with the trauma and one that either doesn't remember the abuse or understands it as happening to someone else.

So the theory goes anyway. One of the main arguments made by DID sceptics is that people who show these symptoms are simply prone to fantasising, and have become enamoured with the idea of the disorder through characters such as Sméagol and Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. "Sceptics say people who display multiple personalities are just role playing," says Reinders.

To investigate whether this might be the case, Reinders and her colleagues at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, studied the brain activity of people who had previously been diagnosed with DID, and compared it with the brain activity of people who do not fall under that diagnosis but are known to fantasise. They also assessed people who are much less prone to fantasising.

The participants with DID were asked to give an example of a traumatic experience that one of their identities was aware of and one was not. Reinders's team then used PET scans to look at the brain activity of these participants as they were reminded of the trauma while in the identity state that was aware of the experience. The researchers repeated the exercise when the participants were in an identity state unaware of the trauma.

Those who had not been diagnosed with DID were asked to imagine they had distinct personalities - only one of whom was aware of a trauma that they had experienced. They, too, were PET scanned while reminded of the trauma twice: once in the personality aware of the experience and once in the personality unaware of the event.

None of the people who were not diagnosed with DID were able to mimic the brain activation patterns seen in the individuals who were, says Reinders (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039279). "The responses we find in DID patients are not due to fantasy proneness."

"It's a fine paper," says Harald Merckelbach, a DID-sceptic at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. "It shows that people with DID really do have a disorder. I think non-believers would be convinced."

But Stephen Morse, who specialises in criminal and mental health law at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thinks that those non-believers might need more evidence. "It would be helpful if these findings were replicated in another laboratory," he says.

"The critical question is: if DID is a genuine disorder, what follows legally?" Morse adds. If a defendant has DID, and the alter personalities are not aware of all the others, there are those who argue that it's not fair to punish all of them, he says.

"I can see a judge concluding that the evidence for DID is not strong enough to admit it into evidence, but the current study might alter that opinion."

Saks agrees. "I think it would help jurors understand that DID is not exclusively something feigned but can be a real disorder," she says. "It would be pretty persuasive."
 
As a child, Jeni was repeatedly raped and tortured by her father, Richard Haynes, in what Australian police say is one of the worst child abuse cases in the country.
To cope with the horror, her mind used an extraordinary tactic - creating new identities for her to detach from the pain. The abuse was so extreme and so persistent, she says she ultimately generated 2,500 distinct personalities to survive.
And in the landmark trial in March, Jeni confronted her father to present evidence against him through her personalities, including a four-year-old girl named Symphony.
It's believed to be the first case in Australia, and perhaps the world, where a victim with diagnosed Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) - or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - has testified in their other personalities and secured a conviction.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49589160
 
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