Can You Recover from Dissociative Identity Disorder?

We used to refer to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as multiple personalities or Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). The creation of multiple identities occurs often in response to extreme abuse in childhood. Individuals who have developed different identities have described the experience as a way to escape the abuse.  Recently, an Australian judge made a landmark ruling allowing six of Jeni Haynes’s personalities to testify against her father for the horrific abuse she suffered as a child. In response to the extreme and persistent abuse, the woman created 2,500 different personalities to survive.1 The ruling is a precedent where a person diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) — or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) — testified in their other personalities. As a result of the testimony, the father was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in jail by a Sydney court. In the words of Jeni Haynes, when asked about one of her personalities, a 4-year-old girl named Symphony, she explained, “he wasn’t abusing me, he was abusing Symphony.” Splitting into different people allows for an escape from a situation that cannot be escaped from.  While the ruling in Australia is modern, the phenomenon that we describe as Dissociative Identity Disorder is not new. In fact, it is already described in ancient Chinese medical literature.4 Is it possible to recover from Dissociative Identity Disorder? The short answer is yes. But what does recovery from...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Dissociative disorders Personality Trauma Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder Source Type: news