Dissociative Identify Disorder
Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID, is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process which produces a lack connections between someone’s memories, feelings, thoughts, actions, and their sense of identity (Chakraburtty, 2009). The dissociative part is thought to be a way of coping. The person dissociates themselves from a situation or experience that can be too violent, painful, or traumatic to assimilate with their conscious self (Chakraburtty, 2009). Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a somewhat common result of severe trauma during early childhood. Typically, extreme, repetitive, physical, emotional, and or sexual abuses (Chakraburtty, 2009). DID is identified by the presence of two or more distinct or split personality or identity states. These separate states or identities constantly have power over a person’s behavior. The different identities usually have their own sex, race, or age. They have their own voices, accents, postures and gestures. The different identities can sometimes be imaginary people, or even animals. When the persons identities make themselves known, or become known, it is called switching, and switching can take anywhere from minutes to days to occur (Chakraburtty, 2009). DID is found to begin more in children than in adults. Adult trauma may potentially cause the DID to surface, if the adult had developed DID in childhood. It makes sense that DID begins in childhood, because that is during the time that personality develops in everyone. The ongoing abuse or trauma causes distinct, separate personalities to manifest. These distinct personalities are not like ego states, the main personality of the person is usually unknowing to the presence of the other personalities. People with DID tend to have periods of amnesia. They may be unable to remember certain in events or all events within a specific time period. They may continuously run into
References: Barach, P. (1991). Multiple Personality Disorder as an attachment disorder. Retrieved from http://www.peterbarach.com/MPD%20as%20an%20attachment%20disorder.htm Martinez-Taboas, A. (1991). Multiple personality disorder as seen from a social constructionist viewpoint. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/1450/Diss_4_3_4_OCR_rev.pdf?sequence=4 Chakraburtty, A. (2009). Dissociative Identity Disorder. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?page=4 Croft, H. (2009). Causes of dissociative disorder. Retrieved from http://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/causes-of-dissociative-identity-disorder/menu-id-57/