Dissociative Identity Disorder Paper

Dissociative identity disorder, or DID, is a mental disorder marked by the disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personalities marked by the discontinuity of self as well as alterations in behavior, affect, and consciousness. The DSM-5 gives four additional criteria for diagnosing DID. The second criterion is recurrent gaps in memory, such as important personal information and everyday events, which are not consistent with everyday forgetfulness. The next diagnostic criterion states that the symptoms must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning. Also, if the disturbance is a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, it would not be attributed to DID. The final criterion is that the symptoms are not caused by substance abuse or another medical condition with physiological effects (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Those suffering from dissociative identity disorder may do so as a result of a traumatic event, overwhelming experiences, or from experiencing …show more content…
This study was explained by Barlow and Chu in “Measuring fragmentation in dissociative identity disorder: the integration measure and relationship to switching and time in therapy”. For this study, eleven women with DID participated in two sessions individually. In the first session, the women were videotaped performing several cognitive tasks with no instruction to switch identities. Later, all but one had reported they switched several times during the first session. In the second session, the women returned to the same location to report their experiences during session one. The women reported which identity had performed each task and whether other identities were aware or listening internally. The women also filled out a number of