Psychological Disorders 561(DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder. In this disorder, a person
seems to experience at least two or more distinct personalities existing in one body.
There may be a “core” personality, who usually knows nothing about the other per-
sonalities and is the one who experiences “blackouts” or losses of memory and time.
Fugues are common in dissociative identity disorder, with the core personality expe-
riencing unsettling moments of “awakening” in an unfamiliar place or with people
who call the person by another name (Kluft, 1984).
With the publication of several famous books and movies made from those books,
dissociative identity disorder became well known to the public. Throughout the 1980s,
psychological professionals began to diagnose this condition at an alarming rate—
”multiple personality,” as it was then known, had become the “fad” disorder of the
late twentieth century, according to some researchers (Aldridge-Morris, 1989; Boor,
1982; Cormier & Thelen, 1998; Showalter, 1997). Although the diagnosis of disso-
ciative identity disorder has been a point of controversy and scrutiny, with many
(but not all) professionals doubting the validity of previous diagnoses, some believe
otherwise.
Some research suggests DID is not only a valid diagnostic category, it may co- occur
in other disorders, such as individuals with borderline personality disorder, and may pos-
sibly be characterized by specific variations in brain functioning (Dorahy et al., 2014;
Ross et al., 2014; Schlumpf et al., 2014). Dissociative symptoms and features can also
be found in other cultures. The trancelike state known as amok in which a person sud-
denly becomes highly agitated and violent (found in Southeast Asia and Pacific Island
cultures) is usually associated with no memory for the period during which the “trance”
lasts (Hagan et al., 2015; Suryani & Jensen, 1993). However, despite their occurrence, in
some cultures dissociative symptoms in and of themselves are not always perceived as a
source of stress or a problem (van Duijl et al., 2010).
Causes of Dissociative Disorders
14.8 Summarize explanations for dissociative disorders.
Psychodynamic theory sees the repression of threatening or unacceptable thoughts and
behavior as a defense mechanism at the heart of all disorders, and the dissociative dis-
orders in particular seem to have a large element of repression—motivated forgetting—
in them. In the psychodynamic view, loss of memory or disconnecting one’s awareness
from a stressful or traumatic event is adaptive in that it reduces the emotional pain
(Dorahy, 2001).
Cognitive and behavioral explanations for dissociative disorders are con-
nected: The person may feel guilt, shame, or anxiety when thinking about disturb-
ing experiences or thoughts and start to avoid thinking about them. This “thought
avoidance” is negatively reinforced by the reduction of the anxiety and unpleasant
feelings and eventually will become a habit of “not thinking about” these things.
This is similar to what many people do when faced with something unpleasant, such
as an injection or a painful procedure such as having a root canal. They “think about
something else.” In doing that, they are deliberately not thinking about what is hap-
pening to them at the moment, and the experience of pain is decreased. People with
dissociative disorders may simply be better at doing this sort of “not thinking” than
other people are.
Also, consider the positive reinforcement possibilities for a person with a disso-
ciative disorder: attention from others and help from professionals. Shaping may also
play a role in the development of some cases of dissociative identity disorder. The ther-
apist may unintentionally pay more attention to a client who talks about “feeling like