Dissociative Identity Disorder Research Paper

Imagine what it would feel like if you could develope a whole new personality and mental perspective of life. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a mental illness that allows the brain to perceive a new identity through the holder’s eyes. I became familiar with the mental illness by watching the famous television show Bates Motel. The main character, Norman Bates, is a seventeen year old caucasian male that has no history of any mental illnesses. He has symptoms of dissociative identity disorder from the significant impairments in most areas of his life. There are five criterias for the diagnostic of DID; Norman meets all five of the criteria. My essential question, to begin my research, is “what does it take for the brain to develop dissociative
identity disorder?”.
Mental Illnesses have always fascinated me ever since I learned about the human body. Dissociative identity disorder is a unique illness that is difficult for even experts to understand. To begin my research, I came up with two investigative questions to help me understand more about DID. “How do you develop dissociative identity disorder?” and “how is dissociative identity disorder treated?”. I take great interest in these questions because they help me further my answers toward my essential question.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously named Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), has been the biggest controversy psychological researchers have discussed.
DID is defined as the presence of two or more distinct personality states (Barlow 5). It is a significant disruption in a person’s usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment (Levy 73). In the patient’s eyes, they believe they are someone else, but can’t tell a difference until the illness is pointed out. The identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person’s behavior at least 4 times within a day (Levy 73). Putnam argued that alternate identities are discrete states of consciousness that are demonstrably dissociated from each other (5). Psychological researchers, to this day, continue to research dissociative identity disorder because of the in-depth
effects. To develop dissociative identity disorder, it takes much damage to your self being growing up as a child. It results from overwhelming traumatic experiences in early childhood- resulting in the child’s attachment system (Spring 44-46). Some “traumatic experiences” include neglect, physical/sexual abuse, extreme terror, and/or repeated medical trauma. Benjamin Levy explained that patients with dissociative identity disorder had forgetfulness and their personal information was too extensive to be explained (73). Symptoms of DID include losses of time, memory lapses, blackouts, lying, feeling unreal, and feeling like more than one person (Dryden- Edwards). Individuals with DID often suffer from other mental illnesses, including posttraumatic stress disorder, conversion disorder and other personality disorders (Dryden- Edwards). Once diagnosed with any mental illness, patients are immediately directed to a special treatment.
Therapy is ultimately the number one suggested treatment for patients who have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.
The sessions will include a therapist and the patient, one-on-one, to evaluate his/her feelings and begin the treatment process. Therapy will be longer sessions (75- 90 minutes) and may extend to five or more years (Spring 44-46). Phase oriented treatment is most effective for the patients. The three stages include: first establishing safety, stabilisation, and symptom reduction. Second is working through and integrating traumatic memories and finally third is integration and rehabilitation (Spring 44-46). Hypnosis is sometimes used to help people with dissociative identity disorder learn more about their personality states in hope to gain more control of those states (Dryden- Edwards). Most therapist will perform extra duties and provide webcam or phone call sessions for the patients to make the process become faster and more
efficient. In conclusion, dissociative identity disorder develops from extreme trauma from an individual’s childhood. The biggest thing I learned from this investigative question was you can only develop it through childhood experiences. Before my research, I thought a person was born with dissociative identity disorder. Another one of my biggest thing I learned was patients go through therapy for tver five years. The longest case went on for ten years of therapy and treatment. From my research, I learned that mental illnesses are a very serious issue and take time for the brain itself to heal.