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The Effects of Substance Abuse on Dissociative Identity Disorder

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The Effects of Substance Abuse on Dissociative Identity Disorder
Alex Barbour
Mary Crocker Cook
Abnormal Psychology

The effects of substance abuse on Dissociative Identity Disorder

“For a variety of reasons there has been little dialogue among the disciplines that study patients with trauma and those that study and treat substance abuse. Little systematic investigation exists on the treatment of DID in general, and substance abuse in DID in particular” (1). Dissociative Identity Disorder is defined in Essentials of Abnormal Psychology as “a disorder in which as many as 100 personalities or fragments of personalities coexist within one body and mind” (Durand & Barlow, pg. 188). More commonly known as “multiple personality disorder,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, also known as The DSM-IV, changed the name to Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, for various reasons. One main reason being that a patients personality is the sum of identities, which may have split off in the past due to individual or multiple traumatic events. Patients believe they have multiple personalities which take on a life of their own within themselves. Professionals sometimes use the term “alters” to reference the multiple personalities associated with DID, and use the term “host” in reference to the patient. “How many personalities live inside one body is relatively unimportant. This change also corrects the notion that multiple people somehow live inside one body” (Durand & Barlow, pg. 189). Dissociative Identity Disorder is also defined as a disturbance in the normally integrative functions of memory, identity, and consciousness. Mental illness can be brought on due to many different factors, as well as at any age, from childhood to adulthood. Factors included in causing mental illnesses are having a biological relative with a mental illness, stressful life situations, experiences in the womb, and the glue holding this entire paper together, childhood abuse and neglect as well as traumatic experiences. Dissociative Identity
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