Dissociate Identity Disorder

4 Pages 1061 Words

Dissociate Identity Disorder

Driving for miles in a trance like state of mind, not really remembering driving is called “Highway Hypnosis”. “Highway Hypnosis” happens to almost everyone, this is a normal form of disassociation. Disassociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, and actions. (Sidran.org) A more severe form of disassociation is Dissociate Identity Disorder or formally called Multiple Personality Disorder. DID is a psychiatric disorder characterized by having at least one “alter” personality. (Skepdic.com)
Psychiatrists have argued for years if DID actually exists. The famous case of “Sybil” leads some psychiatrists to be skeptic about the disorder. “Sybil was said to have six-teen personalities. (Newsweek) Cases have been reported of patients having over one-hundred personalities. This paper will present cases of patients diagnosed with DID and information about the disorder to argue that Disassociation Identity Disorder does truly exist.
DID is said to be an adaptive reaction to experiences of extreme trauma. When a child is faced with a traumatic experience the child may react by “going away” in their minds so they don’t have to deal with the horrific situation. If the child decides to take this route of dealing with the trauma and pain their thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions of the experiences can be separated off psychologically. (Sidran.org) DID is considered a creative survival technique that allows the child to escape and not feel the pain as they are being harmed. After the child’s traumatic experience they could have no recollection of the event what so ever but they may discover that something horrific has happened to them many years later as they start to dissociate more often. If disassociation is used repeatedly for a long p...