Fragmented Science
Fragmented Science, Fragmented Mind, or Doorway to a New Paradigm:
The Perplexity of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously identified as Multiple Identity Disorder, until renamed in the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), is considered by the American Psychiatric Association to be one of 4 main kinds of dissociative disorders (DSM-IV): “The essential feature of dissociative disorders is a disturbance or alteration in the normally integrative functions of identity, memory, or consciousness.” The name was adjusted to reflect a better understanding of the condition. The change was namely based on the notion that the disease is predominantly characterized by a fragmentation, or splintering, of identity rather than by a multiplication, or growth, of separate identities. DID is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities are present in an individual, and alternatively take over the functioning of that individual (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
The human psyche is comprised of many facets of a multi-dimensional, single-self. DID reflects a failure to integrate the various aspects of identity, memory, and consciousness into a single self. In most cases, a main identity carries the individual’s birth name and is a passive, dependent, and sometimes, deeply depressed person. When a secondary identity takes control, it is demonstrated as possessing a distinct past, self-image and identity. This distinct identity will usually have a name, reported age and gender, vocabulary, general knowledge, and predominant mood that is in contrast with those of the main identity. The various identities may deny knowledge of one another, be critical of one another or appear to be in open conflict. In essence, DID is an extreme manifestation of something that we all experience to a lesser degree—not having one entirely integrated identity (Haddock 2001). An integrated identity to Young is “one which is organized around some set of facts or specific aspects of the environment, around some values if you will” (1929, p. 291). Essentially, a normally functioning person is rooted by a specific set of facts, forming a linked reality between each separate facet of the normal, integrated self.
All the causes of DID are not yet known, but there are numerous studies being done to determine what may be the predominant factors leading to fragmentation. A National Institute of Mental Health survey looking at 100 DID cases reported by Putnam in 1986 found that 97% of DID patients reported significant trauma during their childhoods. Incest was reported 68% of the time, along with physical abuse, extreme neglect and other factors. Putnam believes that therapists that have worked with more than a couple of patients with DID would not doubt the existence of a causal relationship between DID and childhood trauma, mostly child abuse. Putnam believes that the abuse suffered by patients with DID is more bizarre and sadistic than that which occurs to most victims of childhood abuse (Putnam, 1989). Dr. Bennett Braun, who devotes his practice to DID has said:
“The kind of abuse that leads to multiple identity is frequent, unpredictable and interspersed with love. As children, the multiples have known both love and abuse, and they string together one identity that experiences the good part, another that embodies the bad. The parent will be very loving one moment, then the next switch into a monster. Many of the parents of multiple identities themselves seem to suffer from the disorder, and a surprising amount of the abuse comes from mothers.”
Putnam in 1989 presented a developmental model of DID where he demonstrates that the consolidation of identity and self across behavioral states is a normal developmental part of one’s childhood, unless this process is disrupted by severe forms of trauma or other developmental issues. These disruptions cause a chronic vulnerability to identity states and the shifting states of consciousness. Not every child who experiences abuse or major loss or trauma has the capacity to develop multiple identities. One pertinent factor may be that patients with dissociative identity disorder can be easily hypnotized. This capacity, closely related to the capacity to dissociate, is thought to be a factor in the development of the disorder. However, most children who have these capacities also have normal adaptive mechanisms, and most are sufficiently protected and soothed by adults to prevent development of dissociative identity disorder.
In the world of psychoanalysis and the DSM-IV, one is found in the middle of a perplexing state of affairs in regards to DID. On one side of the fence are those who present DID as a result of fragmented science. They question the legitimacy of DID existing as a concrete disorder, claiming that people who present the appearance of DID may have learned to exhibit the symptoms in return for social reinforcement. They have doubts that the disorder even exists, despite the fact that it is included in the DSM-IV. Some believe that because most DID patients are easily hypnotized, their symptoms have arisen in response to therapists’ suggestions. McHugh (1992) argues vigorously that hysteria—what he sees as the patient’s “more or less unconscious effort to appear more significant to others and to be more entitled to their interest and support”—accounts for the bizarre behavior of those who claim to have multiple identities and identities. Merskey (1992) believes that the rise in DID diagnosis can be traced to the influence of the 1957 book The Three Faces of Eve and other books and other films about DID, as well as the uncritical embracing of the DID diagnosis by a large number of mental health care professionals. He claims he could not identify a single uncontaminated DID case originating in a defensive response to trauma, the mechanism classically thought to underlie DID. Focusing on the role of the mental health care profession, McHugh calls the diagnosis a “psychiatric misadventure” (McHugh, 1992, 1995; McHugh and Putnam, 1995). On the other side are those who support the prognosis that DID is a valid disorder and should be diagnosed and treated as such. They see the individual exhibiting the disorder as suffering from a fragmented mind, and proceed to put the pieces back together.
A strikingly different, yet spellbinding new approach for explaining Dissociative Identity Disorder is based on the holographic model of the brain. Within the holographic model of the brain, put forth by Karl Pribram, lies an explanation of phenomena pertaining to individuals diagnosed with DID. The holographic model of the brain sheds light on how the fragmentation of one identity or self, into many identities or many different versions of self can exist. It also explains how each separate identity is able to posses a different brain-wave pattern, as well as how it is possible for an individual with DID shifts from one identity to another, they are able to illustrate marked physiological changes(Talbot). The correlation between the holographic model of the brain and psychological phenomena, such as MPD, represents a new course for psychology and general-thought of our brains and body as a whole.
A hologram is a three-dimensional image made using a laser light. A hologram is produced when a laser light is split into two separate beams. The first beam is bounced off the object that is meant to be photographed, and onto the holographic plate. The second beam collides with the image of the first beam on the plate, which creates an interference pattern that is recorded on the film, imprinting the image. Following this process, the examination of the film with the naked eye, produces nothing for the observer other than what looks like little concentric rings that form when a handful of pebbles are tossed into a pond. But as soon as another laser is shown through the film, a three-dimensional image of the photographed object appears (Talbot). It is actually possible to walk around a holographic projection and view from different angles. The question then is, what new light does this shed on the perplexity of Dissociative Identity Disorder?
The answer lies in the remarkable characteristics that comprise a hologram, as well as the mathematics that allows for its existence. A characteristic of a hologram that is of great importance to this paper is the fact that every small fragment of a piece of holographic film contained the whole. If a piece of holographic film is cut in half, or fourths, eighths, even smaller, each piece will found to contain all the information originally recorded. The holographic paradigm is an idea composed of the works of two men working separately—a former protégé of Einstein’s, Physicist David Bohm; and a neurophysiologist named Karl Pribram. Pribram discovered that the brain uses the same mathematics to decipher reality as involved in the creation of a hologram. Bohm, on the other hand, in the process of studying the workings of the subatomic world, discovered there are properties on the subatomic level that suggest that the very fabric of reality is put together like a hologram (Talbot). In putting these two separate ideas together you get the premise behind the holographic paradigm, and the holographic model of the brain.
In application of the holographic model to the form and function of DID, it is interesting to note that when the psyche fragments itself, it does not become a collection of broken and jagged-edged shards, but a collection of smaller wholes, complete and self-sustaining with their own traits, motives, and desires. Although these wholes are not identical copies of the original identity, they are related to the dynamics of the original identity, and this in itself suggests that some kind of holographic process is involved. There is a case of a 24-year-old patient with four separate alters that were given a psychological word association test. Each of the four alters answered like they were four separate people with no leakage of a single word association. A 27-year-old patient with four alters was given a battery of neurological and psychological tests. All four selves reacted completely independently from the others (Schreiber, 1973). This shows how it is a fallacy to presume that DID is not a true phenomenon. In reality, DID is an anomalous phenomenon of science, that in order to understand may have to thought of outside the constraints of scientific norms.
Another unusual feature of DID is that each of a patient’s identities possesses a different brain-wave pattern. Even more noteworthy are the biological changes that take place in a patient’s body when they switch identities. Frequently a medical condition possessed by one identity will mysteriously vanish when another identity takes over. Dr. Bennet Braun of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Identity, in Chicago, has documented a case in which all of a patient’s sub-identities were allergic to orange juice, except one. If the man drank orange juice when one of his allergic identities was in control, he would break out in a terrible rash. But if he switched to his non-allergic identity, the multiple which is drunk can instantly become sober. Different identities also respond differently to different drugs. Braun records a case in which 5 milligrams of diazepam, a tranquilizer, sedated one identity, while 100 milligrams had little or no effect on another. Often one or several of a patient’s identities are children, and if an adult identity is given a drug and then a child’s identity take over, the adult dosage may be too much for the child and result in an overdose. It is also difficult to anesthetize some patients, and there are accounts of individuals waking up on the operating table after one of their “unanesthetizable” sub-identities has taken over.
Other conditions that can vary from identity to identity include scars; burn marks, cysts, and left- and right-handedness. Visual acuity can also differ, and some multiples have to carry two or three different pairs of eyeglasses to accommodate their alternating identities. One identity can be color-blind and another not, and even eye color can change (Lipton). There are cases of women who have two or three menstrual periods each month because each of their sub-identities has its own cycle. Speech pathologist Christy Ludlow has found that the voice pattern for each of a patient’s identities is different, a feat that requires such a deep physiological change that even the most accomplished actor cannot alter his voice enough to disguise his voice pattern (Janis). One multiple, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her doctors by showing no symptoms when one of her non-diabetic identities was in control (Talbot). There are even accounts of epilepsy coming and going with changes in identity, and psychologist Robert A. Phillips, Jr. reports that even tumors can appear and disappear.
All of these examples support the argument that Dissociative Identity Disorder is a doorway to a new paradigm of understanding the mind. The physiological changes that have been documented as occurring when someone with DID changes identities are mystifying. They are real occurrences that the psychological community is unable to explain. They support the view that our minds are built like holograms, and the previous view that science has of the function of our minds in relation to our bodies is lacking. The holographic model of the brain represents a latent ability we all have to change our external expression, by simply changing the perception we have of ourselves. Patients with DID are usually not able to control this power and it becomes destructive to them due to the uncontrollable and erratic nature of the disorder. This research demonstrates that how we view ourselves, even as far as what color eyes we have, is intimately related to how we physically display our biological form. Knowing this shows that we have the ability to heal ourselves, by simply perceiving of the fact that we are healed. The holographic model of the brain opens a new door for science to understand DID.
-JMS
