Type of disorder:Dissociative disorders are characterized by 'a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity or perception of the environment'.
What does this mean? Memories and feelings may not go together- there may be recall with no accompanying affect, or there may be overwhelming feelings with no conscious memory of their cause.There is also often a lack of a coherent sense of autobiography, and this itself leads to problems with a sense of identitiy. Range of dissociative disorders (DID) on a spectrum of severity: Least: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Most: Dissociative identity disorder (DID) Inbetween: dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalisation disorder, and derealisation disorder The vast majority of people with DID do not obviously present as if they have 'multiple personalities'. Instead they present with a number of both dissociative and post-traumatic symptoms, as well a many apparently non-trauma-related abuse such as depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and anxiety. Only 6% of people with DID present thier dissociated identities publicly. DID is an 'a disorder of hiddenness'. as the vast majority of people with DID will attempt to conceal their symptoms and way of being. In fact, many people with DID are high-functioning members of society with good careers before some crisis or build-up of stressors leads to a sudden breakdown. |
Research indicates that DID affects between 1% and 3% of the general population. This corresponds to between approximately 650,000 and 1.85 million people in the UK. DID factors:
caused by severe and chronic childhood trauma (physical and sexual abuse) episodes of extreme terror repeated medical trauma disorganized attachment in one or both parents 86% of the sample of DID patients reported a history of sexual abuse. Many clinicians postion DID in a post-traumatic framework but there are many arguments for it to be reclassified. "Who am I?"
"What happen in my life?" |