4 ms·

I thought this sort of thing had been debunked?

geoelectric 9y ago
From the article: "And in the UK, at least, DID is a controversial diagnosis. It is listed in both of the main psychiatric manuals used around the world (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, produced by the American Psychiatric Association, and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, produced by the World Health Organization). But in practice, says Aquarone, there can still be reluctance among psychiatrists to accept it. DID is now thought to affect perhaps 1% of people (about the same rate as schizophrenia), yet there have been claims from sceptics that perhaps patients are simply acting out different identities, and that a proneness to fantasy explains the entire disorder. "Brain imaging work supports the idea that people with DID are not acting, and there is other research refuting such claims. In 2016, for example, a team at King’s College London published a study of 65 women, including some diagnosed with DID. They concluded that the women with DID were no more fantasy-prone, suggestible or likely to generate false memories than those without a diagnosis. According to the authors, this result challenges the core hypothesis of the ‘fantasy model’. "Melanie is now a director of First Person Plural, a dissociative identity disorders association, and she frequently talks to psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs and care workers, spreading the word that DID is real. She and Aquarone recently helped to organise the first conference on services for people with trauma-related dissociation – it brought together clinicians from the NHS and the private and voluntary sectors. One of the big challenges, they note, is that it can take many months of therapy with a specialist in dissociative disorders to help a patient, but this is generally only available privately."
azrazalea 9y ago
How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong. I know multiple "collectives", as I've heard them called, on some online chatrooms. They seem perfectly functional and logically consistent.
- cavanasm 9y ago
  I think parent comment was referring to "Sybil" or something similar (it isn't the only story about DID like this), which was based on a real person, except there's indication her psychiatrist was tricking her into thinking she had multiple personalities and then helping resolve those personalities in order to make money off the story. Pretty much everything about the case is unclear at this point, other than that shady biz was going on everywhere once people realized there was big money to be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(Schreiber_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(Schreiber_book)
- dsacco 9y ago
  By "debunked", the parent meant, "there is little clinical evidence for existence." The burden of proof for the diagnosis is on the assertion; people can act as though they have multiple personalities, and that's why there is controversy on the disease itself.
  - azrazalea 9y ago
    I mean, at least in a social (not clinical) setting, i'd say the burden of proof is on society to prove that it doesn't exist. I understand not wanting to clinically treat it if there isn't much evidence.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Not really. You don't prove non-existence -- you prove existence. Else we'd also have some burden to prove that fairies don't exist.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong. Yes, but there's this thing called science, that doesn't care about hurting feelings...
placebo 9y ago
I asked a friend who said that in the decades he has practiced psychiatry not only did he never have a patient with this diagnosis, but he also never met a colleague who did, so his personal opinion is that this is more of something meant for Hollywood scripts or attention grabbing articles than something that actually exists in the way it is portrayed.

From the article: "And in the UK, at least, DID is a controversial diagnosis. It is listed in both of the main psychiatric manuals used around the world (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, produced by the American Psychiatric Association, and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, produced by the World Health Organization). But in practice, says Aquarone, there can still be reluctance among psychiatrists to accept it. DID is now thought to affect perhaps 1% of people (about the same rate as schizophrenia), yet there have been claims from sceptics that perhaps patients are simply acting out different identities, and that a proneness to fantasy explains the entire disorder. "Brain imaging work supports the idea that people with DID are not acting, and there is other research refuting such claims. In 2016, for example, a team at King’s College London published a study of 65 women, including some diagnosed with DID. They concluded that the women with DID were no more fantasy-prone, suggestible or likely to generate false memories than those without a diagnosis. According to the authors, this result challenges the core hypothesis of the ‘fantasy model’. "Melanie is now a director of First Person Plural, a dissociative identity disorders association, and she frequently talks to psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs and care workers, spreading the word that DID is real. She and Aquarone recently helped to organise the first conference on services for people with trauma-related dissociation – it brought together clinicians from the NHS and the private and voluntary sectors. One of the big challenges, they note, is that it can take many months of therapy with a specialist in dissociative disorders to help a patient, but this is generally only available privately."

azrazalea 9y ago

How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong. I know multiple "collectives", as I've heard them called, on some online chatrooms. They seem perfectly functional and logically consistent.

cavanasm 9y ago
I think parent comment was referring to "Sybil" or something similar (it isn't the only story about DID like this), which was based on a real person, except there's indication her psychiatrist was tricking her into thinking she had multiple personalities and then helping resolve those personalities in order to make money off the story. Pretty much everything about the case is unclear at this point, other than that shady biz was going on everywhere once people realized there was big money to be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(Schreiber_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(Schreiber_book)
dsacco 9y ago
By "debunked", the parent meant, "there is little clinical evidence for existence." The burden of proof for the diagnosis is on the assertion; people can act as though they have multiple personalities, and that's why there is controversy on the disease itself.
- azrazalea 9y ago
  I mean, at least in a social (not clinical) setting, i'd say the burden of proof is on society to prove that it doesn't exist. I understand not wanting to clinically treat it if there isn't much evidence.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Not really. You don't prove non-existence -- you prove existence. Else we'd also have some burden to prove that fairies don't exist.
coldtea 9y ago
>How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong. Yes, but there's this thing called science, that doesn't care about hurting feelings...

placebo 9y ago

I asked a friend who said that in the decades he has practiced psychiatry not only did he never have a patient with this diagnosis, but he also never met a colleague who did, so his personal opinion is that this is more of something meant for Hollywood scripts or attention grabbing articles than something that actually exists in the way it is portrayed.