The mind is a powerful thing. It can change a person’s way of seeing the world, tasting, feeling, smelling, and hearing. It has the ability to change every sense that we use to experience the world around us. Dissociative Identity Disorder is where a person has more than one identity. They can show symptoms such as mood swings, amnesia, self-destructive behavior and more mental issues. This disorder changes the way the patient perceives the world in the way that each identity is different. One identity may exhibit strong leadership characteristics and people skills whereas another identity will exhibit great cowardice and lack any type of social prowess. Patients with DID can have anywhere from 2 to 12 identities depending on the patient and
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This includes the development of allergies. One identity in a patient, let’s call him Anthony, can drink orange juice without any type of physical reactions. But when another identity within the same patient, let’s call this identity Charlie, drinks orange juice it will result in a case of hives. There is no specific reason known as to how exactly this is possible, but research is constantly being conducted. This strange development of allergies has brought great interest to researchers in the study of Dissociative Identity Disorder because it is something that people thought not to be possible. When the patient is Charlie and drinks the orange juice, he gets hives as expected, but if he is having an allergic reaction at the time that Anthony takes over, the itching will stop, and the hives will start to disappear as if he was never allergic to the orange juice at all. It is as if a switch flips on and off to activate and deactivate the effects of the allergy depending on what identity is in control at the time. (Rathus, …show more content…
This event is called integration. After integration, an identity will no longer exist. The identity is no longer needed, and it integrates into the patient’s main identity, or person, before any alternates were in existence. With there being anywhere from 2 plus identities depending on the patient, this process can take years to accomplish even once. The length of time means that many patients never integrate every identity in their lifetime even after countless amounts of sessions with highly credited therapists. The integration of even a single identity is seen as a huge achievement in the eyes of the patient and the
This includes the development of allergies. One identity in a patient, let’s call him Anthony, can drink orange juice without any type of physical reactions. But when another identity within the same patient, let’s call this identity Charlie, drinks orange juice it will result in a case of hives. There is no specific reason known as to how exactly this is possible, but research is constantly being conducted. This strange development of allergies has brought great interest to researchers in the study of Dissociative Identity Disorder because it is something that people thought not to be possible. When the patient is Charlie and drinks the orange juice, he gets hives as expected, but if he is having an allergic reaction at the time that Anthony takes over, the itching will stop, and the hives will start to disappear as if he was never allergic to the orange juice at all. It is as if a switch flips on and off to activate and deactivate the effects of the allergy depending on what identity is in control at the time. (Rathus, …show more content…
This event is called integration. After integration, an identity will no longer exist. The identity is no longer needed, and it integrates into the patient’s main identity, or person, before any alternates were in existence. With there being anywhere from 2 plus identities depending on the patient, this process can take years to accomplish even once. The length of time means that many patients never integrate every identity in their lifetime even after countless amounts of sessions with highly credited therapists. The integration of even a single identity is seen as a huge achievement in the eyes of the patient and the