Your mental health: understanding dissociation disorders
Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memory and sense of identity. Most of us have experienced mild dissociation either when driving down a familiar stretch of road and realize that you do not remember that last several miles, getting “lost” in a good book or daydreaming.
Dissociative disorders come in many forms, the most famous which are known to many of us as multiple personality disorders. All of the disorders are thought to stem from trauma experienced by the individual. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism – the person literally dissociates himself from the situation or experience too traumatic to integrate with his conscious self. Symptoms of these disorders, or even one or more of the disorders themselves, are also seen in a number of other mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.
While the causes of dissociative disorders are still vague, research indicates that a combination of environmental and biological factors work together to cause it.
As many as 98 percent of individuals who develop dissociative disorders have recognized personal histories of recurring, overpowering and often life-threatening disturbances at a sensitive stage of childhood (usually before age nine).
Dissociation may also happen when there has been insistent neglect or emotional abuse, even when there has been no apparent physical or sexual abuse.
Studies show that in families where parents are frightening and unpredictable, the children may become dissociative.
Making the diagnosis of dissociative disorders takes time. It’s estimated that individuals with these disorders have spent seven years in the mental health system prior to accurate diagnosis.
This is common because the list of symptoms that cause a person with dissociative disorder to seek treatment is very similar to those of many other psychiatric diagnoses.
Other dissociative disorders include “psychogenic amnesia” (the inability to recall personally significant memories), “psychogenic fugue” (memory loss characteristic of amnesia, loss of one’s identity and fleeing from one’s home environment) and “multiple personality” (the person has two or more distinct personalities that alternate with one another).
Multiple personality disorders are characterized by the presence of two or more distinct or split identities or personality states that continually have power over the person’s behavior. With multiple personality disorder, there’s also an inability to recall key personal information that is too far-reaching to be explained as mere forgetfulness.
With this disorder, there are also highly distinct memory variations, which fluctuate with the person’s split personality.
The “alters” or different identities have their own age, sex or race. Each has his or her own postures, gestures and distinct way of talking. Sometimes the alters are imaginary people and sometimes they are animals. As each personality reveals itself and controls the individuals’ behavior and thoughts, it’s called “switching.” Switching can take seconds to minutes to days. When under hypnosis, the person’s different “alters” or identities may be very responsive to the therapist’s requests.
Along with the dissociation and multiple or split personalities, many of the following symptoms may occur: suicidal tendencies, night terrors, flashbacks, compulsions and rituals, psychotic-like symptoms, headaches, amnesia, trances, self-persecution and even violence (both self-inflicted and outwardly directed).
While there’s no “cure” for multiple personality disorders, long-term treatment is very successful, if the patient stays committed. The primary treatment for MPD is therapy, which may include play therapy, hypnosis, art therapy and/or traditional talk therapy. Medication is usually not preferred because of the likelihood of overdose and because the dissociative state is not chemically induced. The goal is to get alters in communication with each other, so that the person does not continue to dissociate from reality. A secondary goal is to be sure the person is removed from any ongoing traumatic situations.
Therapy is usually a long process, particularly when one has suffered repeated trauma. It can take several years for the patient to begin to feel fully conscious at all times of his/her actions and thoughts. Clinical research suggests that therapy for multiple personality disorder is effective, if the therapy is continuously pursued.
Two celebrities that have battled MPD are Adam Durity, lead singer of Counting Crows and Herschel Walker, former NFL star running back.
