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Origin-History, Causes, and an Understanding

Historical Origin

Dissociative Idenity Disorder was originally dubbed Multiple Personality Disorder. It was reletivly an uknown disorder mainly because there were so few documented cases. By 1944 there were only 76 recorded cases.

In the early stages of human development, DID was associated with witch craft. This association almost always ended in death for the accused by one of the many primative witch killing techinques of the 16th century. Leading into the new age of the late 1800's all the way up until present times, Dissociative Personality Disorder was often associated w/ demonic possesion. Which often ended in either a successful/unsucessful exorcism. Some of these exorcisms are still performed today, and their success rates often lead psychologist to question the validity of the disorder. (For more information on the controversy click here, for a case study regarding the religious connections/beliefs between DID and Demonic Posession/Exorcisms click here

Origin of Terms

A Defintion of Dissociation

Dissociation is a complex mental process that provides a coping mechanism for individuals confronting painful and/or traumatic situations. It is characterized by a dis-integration of the ego. Ego integration, or more properly ego integrity, can be defined as a person's ability to successfully incorporate external events or social experiences into their perception, and to then present themselves consistently across those events or social situations. A person unable to do this successfully can experience emotional dysregulation, as well as a potential collapse of ego integrity. In other words, this state of emotional dysregulation is, in some cases, so intense that it can precipitate ego dis-integration, or what, in extreme cases, has come to be referred to diagnostically as dissociation.

Dissociation describes a collapse in ego integrity so profound that the personality is considered to literally break apart. For this reason, dissocation is often referred to as "splitting" or "altering". Less profound presentations of this condition are often referred to clinically as disorganization or decompensation. The difference between a psychotic break and a dissociation, or dissociative break, is that, while someone who is experiencing a dissociation is technically pulling away from a situation that s/he cannot manage, some part of the person remains connected to reality. While the psychotic "breaks" from reality, the dissociative disconnects, but not all the way.

Because the person suffering a dissociation does not completely disengage from his/her reality, s/he may appear to have multiple "personalities". In other words, different "people" (read: personalities) to deal with different situations, but generally speaking, no one person (read: personality) who will retreat altogether.

In simpler terms, dissociation is not sociopathic or compulsive. The biological stress caused by the original trauma is relieved by partially shunting the emotional response, which causes the reptilian complex to learn dissociate reactively. This makes recovery from DID a matter of re-training the reptilian complex rather than a function of the more social neo-cortex. Because the trigger is biological stress rather than specific external events, the exact causes of later reactive dissociation are difficult to trace to events.

Early Childhood Development

The origin of the disorder itself is attributed to the interaction of several factors: overwhelming stress, dissociative capacity (including the ability to uncouple one's memories, perceptions, or identity from conscious awareness), the enlistment of steps in normal developmental processes as defenses, and, during childhood, the lack of sufficient nurturing and compassion in response to hurtful experiences or lack of protection against further overwhelming experiences. Children are not born with a sense of a unified identity — it develops from many sources and experiences. In overwhelmed children, its development is obstructed, and many parts of what should have blended into a relatively unified identity remain separate.

North American studies show that 97 to 98% of adults with dissociative identity disorder report abuse during childhood and that abuse can be documented for 85% of adults and for 95% of children and adolescents with dissociative identity disorder and other closely related forms of dissociative disorder.

However certain data shows that children who never reported being abused a a chil will sometimes develop DID. In these cases children have experienced an important early loss (such as death of a parent), serious medical illness, or other very stressful events. For example, a patient who required many hospitalizations and operations during childhood may have been severely overwhelmed but not abused.

Human development requires that children be able to integrate complicated and different types of information and experiences successfully. As children achieve cohesive, complex appreciations of themselves and others, they go through phases in which different perceptions and emotions are kept segregated. Each developmental phase may be used to generate different selves. Not every child who experiences abuse or major loss or trauma has the capacity to develop multiple personalities. Patients with dissociative identity disorder can be easily hypnotized. This capacity, closely related to the capacity to dissociate, is thought to be a factor in the development of the disorder. However, most children who have these capacities also have normal adaptive mechanisms, and most are sufficiently protected and soothed by adults to prevent development of dissociative identity disorder.

DID in Adulthood

The process of developing multiple personalities is way of coping with feelings or situations one either does not understand, or believes they are incapable of dealing with. Although normally developed at an early age, there are certain triggers that will activate the disorder during adulthood, often in the time phrame between ones mid 20's - early 30's. For a list of possible triggers click here

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