Martha Stout's 'Spectrum Of Dissociation From Unhealthy'

Gabrielle Tran
Dr. Evans
Expository Writing 101; GO
Assignment 1 Rough Draft
September 13, 2016
The Spectrum of Dissociation from Healthy to Unhealthy Much like Lewis Carroll’s novel, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, Martha Stout discusses the complexity of consciousness. To demonstrate the complexity of consciousness, Stout uses various patients from her years of clinical experience, delineating a continuum of dissociation. Stout describes the spectrum of dissociation, ranging from the everyday distraction, like going to the movies, to disorders, like Dissociative Identity Disorder. By using criteria such as presence of trauma leading to dissociation, duration and recollection of dissociation, and experience of pain during dissociation,
To illustrate, Stout describes Beverly, a woman reading the newspaper before “bodily feelings” ambush her (422) when startled by the train. Although Beverly appears normal, the train horn triggers an ambush of bodily feelings, putting the present “perceptually and emotionally the past” (422). In other words, Beverly’s present experience with the train horn triggers memories of her sister’s death due to a speeding car. According to Stout, reaction to “relatively trivial stresses” (422), those traumatized long ago may “feel” (422) the same imminent danger. Since Beverly experiences an ambush of bodily feelings, Stout suggests that the death of Beverly’s sister traumatizes Beverly. Despite feeling a surge of feelings, Beverly may continue her day “without self-awareness” (423). Moreover, Beverly may feel “mildly amused at herself for her spaciness” (423). By describing Beverly’s lack of self-awareness, Stout suggests that Beverly does not recall the ambush of bodily feelings. Despite not experiencing physical pain during her dissociative episode, Beverly still experiences emotional pain through “fragments of sensation and emotion” (422). Stout emphasizes the use of “feel” (422) to demonstrate the emotional pain Beverly goes through. Since Beverly experiences previous trauma, pain and does not possess a recollection of dissociation, Beverly
When Stout firsts meets Julia, Julia describes her suicide attempt in a tone that expects the listener to listen to the “crunch-crunch of paws” (424) in snow’s crust. By comparing the soft sound of paw prints stepping through snow to Julia’s tone of speaking, Stout suggests that Julia’s seemingly ordinary story has a hidden traumatic past. During the second session, Julia continues to use the same tone she uses to describe her suicide attempt. When Stout asks Julia about her childhood, Julia recalls a limited amount of memories. For example, Julia recalls a high school friend named Barbra, but she does not remember Barbara’s last name. Although Julia is an intellect, graduating “summa cum laude from Stanford” (423), Julia’s “insufficient memory” (425) causes Stout to feel suspicious about Julia’s past. Put differently, Stout suspects profound trauma in Julia’s past due to Julia’s lack of memory. After six years of therapy and hypnosis, Julia reveals her abusive childhood. The duration of Julia’s therapy and the use of hypnosis to elicit dissociated memories indicate the severity of Julia’s trauma. Furthermore, Julia recalls a situation where she “[wakes] up [one] morning it [is] Tuesday” (431), but later “[discovers] that is [is] Friday for everybody else” (431). In other words, Julia’s dissociative state causes her to forget multiple days, a long