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[jew87.livejournal.com]

We got diagnoed with DID last week but there's problem. We don't know what caused this. There is no memory of trauma. None of us remember any trauma. Is it possible for us to have DID without Trauma? Or is it likely that oneday we'll remember something? The idea of this is scary.

Comments

Re:

[tir-nan-og.livejournal.com]

Is Disassociative Identity Disorder essentially the new term for MPD, or do they exist as seperate diagnosises?
And am I correct in thinking that with the old MPD definition, the person is defined as really having seperate 'personalities', even though these 'personalities' are abbherations that must be corrected out of existence?
I'm tempted to say, fuck em, fuck all these definitions..what do we care what a panel of old white male psychiatrists think of us..what do they know? However, there are indeed quite a few multiples who feel they need help and seek out mental health professionals, myself included. (I'm lucky..my therapist hates the DSM..thinks its just a tool for mental health professionals to feel they have power over their patients.)
It is best to be as vigilant as possible about how we are defined, how mental health professionals are viewing us, and how they envision the best possible outcome of our therapy..lest we find they are gently shepherding us towards...integration!!!
In the classic trauma based model, Wilburesque that is..how narrowly do they define the trauma that would cause such a 'split'?
According to these practitioners, is childhood molestation, even incest, the only thing that would...how would they put it...cause a child's mind to break into pieces? (I hate that whole fragmentation view of it..didnt mean to sound nasty or glib, though. I'm sure there are multiples who feel that they really are fragmented, and I dont want to be the language police.) Or could neglect alone be sufficient trauma?

Re:

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

DID is not just the new term for MPD. The treatment guidelines have changed and it is now emphasized that there are really not separate persons in the system -- a multiple is just one very confused individual, as follows:

"The DID patient is a single person who experiences himself/herself as having separate parts of the mind that function with some autonomy. The patient is not a collection of separate people sharing the same body. The terms personality and alter (short for alternate personality) refer to dissociated parts of the mind that alternately influence behavior in DID patients. Some clinicians prefer terms such as disaggregate self state, part of the mind, or part of the self.

"Additionally, the DID patient is a whole person, with alternate personalities of adult patients sharing responsibility for his or her life as it is now. In the psychotherapeutic setting, therapists working with DID patients generally ought to hold the whole person to be responsible for the behavior of all of the alternate personalities."

http://www.issd.org/indexpage/isdguide.htm

The treatment guidelines nowhere state flat out that this is caused by trauma, but they clearly make the assumption that no one would ever become multiple except through trauma, plus that all multiplicity is dissociative by nature.

I must add that Peter Barach, head of the ISSD, who wrote these guidelines, spent several years on Usenet's alt.support.dissociation, where he witnessed all manner of hysterics, theatrics and imitative behaviours (a lot like the historical "epidemics of hystero-epilepsy" in the literature) on the part of self-described multiples. Most of these people had the official diagnosis and had spent years in Wilburian or Braun-style MPD therapy. ASD was the birthplace of spoilers, splats, trigger warnings and lilspeak. It's no wonder Barach has devoted his life and work to wiping out the kind of sick paranoid behaviour displayed by many ASD devotees, and now believes that all multiplicity is a fantasy illness.

Wilburian multiplicity is based on Freud's seduction theory; he believed that all neuroses, including MPD, were caused by childhood trauma, usually sexual, often by a parent. He also thought a lot of trauma was caused by witnessed abuse (spousal battery for instance) or by accidentally witnessing the parents having intercourse (kid doesn't understand, wonders if Mom's being harmed, doesn't feel free to ask). Wilbur picked up on all of this. You can see it in Sybil.

In a study on child abuse -- I'll have to look it up, I don't have the book in front of me -- emotional neglect was found to have far deeper and longer-term effects even than sexual abuse, but you never hear of people claiming to have split as a result of that.

"It is best to be as vigilant as possible about how we are defined, how mental health professionals are viewing us, and how they envision the best possible outcome of our therapy..lest we find they are gently shepherding us towards...integration!!!"

Damn straight.