Understanding multiple personality disorder

The Ackworth School in England, United Kingdom kindly gave permission to use the artwork.

(Medical Xpress) -- New research from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry brings us closer to understanding the mechanisms behind multiple personality disorders.  The study is the first of its kind and finds evidence suggesting that the condition is not linked to fantasy, strengthening the idea that it is related to trauma.

It is estimated that multiple personality disorder, more recently known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), may affect approximately one per cent of the general population, similar to levels reported for schizophrenia. People eventually diagnosed with DID often have several earlier misdiagnoses, including schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. DID is characterized by two or more distinct `identities' or `personality states' - each with their own perception of the environment and themselves. 

Despite being recognised in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), controversy remains around the diagnosis. Some experts argue that DID is linked to trauma such as chronic emotional neglect and/or emotional, physical, or sexual abuse from early childhood. Others hold a non-trauma-related view of DID, whereby the condition is believed to be related to fantasy proneness, suggestibility, simulation or enactment. 

Dr. A.A.T. Simone Reinders from the Department of Psychosis Studies at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s and lead author of the study published in PLoS ONE says: ‘Whether dissociative identity disorder is considered a genuine mental disorder is subject to passionate debate amongst scientists, clinicians and psychiatrists.'

‘We aimed to test the validity of the non-trauma related view. By comparing people with dissociative identity disorder to both high and low-fantasy-prone participants enacting the condition, we found stark differences in their psychological and biological responses to recalling trauma, suggesting that the condition is not related to enactment or fantasy. The study is an interesting and important step forward in the condition debate.’

The trauma-related view implies that DID is a coping strategy where different types of identities can develop. For example, neutral identity states (NIS), where DID patients concentrate on functioning in daily life and deactivate access to any traumatic memories, and trauma-related identity states (TIS), where DID patients have conscious access to the traumatic memories.

The researchers studied 29 people: 11 patients diagnosed with DID, 10 high fantasy prone and 8 low fantasy-prone healthy controls simulating DID. The level of fantasy proneness is an indication of how easily an individual can engage in fantasy, imagery and/or daydreaming.  The researchers measured participants' reactions, cardiovascular responses and brain activity with positron emission tomography (PET) scans when genuine and simulated NIS and TIS were exposed to autobiographical trauma-related or neutral information.

They found strong differences in regional cerebral blood flow and psychophysiological responses between the DID patients and both high and low-fantasy-prone controls, suggesting that the different identity states in DID were not convincingly enacted by DID-simulating controls. 

The study was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and in collaboration with the University Medical Centre Groningen at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. 

More information: Reinders, A.A.T. S. et al. ‘Fact or factitious: a psychobiological study of authentic and simulated dissociative identity states’ PLoS ONE (29 June 2012) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039279

Provided by King's College London

"Understanding multiple personality disorder." July 2nd, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-multiple-personality-disorder.html

Comment:The Internet version is called 'Multiple font Disorder'.  Sufferers frequenctly change font and have no recollection of anything they wrote in the other font...

Robert

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Study shows loss of control leads to paranormal beliefs

(Medical Xpress) -- People who felt a lack of control in their lives were more likely to believe in the claimed “psychic abilities” of a famous octopus, a University of Queensland (UQ) study has found.

Paul the Octopus gained notoriety during the 2010 soccer World Cup for correctly “predicting" the winner of all games in the competition.

The eight-armed “psychic” was the subject of Dr Katharine Greenaway's experiment involving 40 participants.

Dr Greenaway said half of the participants were induced to feel a sense of high control and the other half to feel in low control.

“We did this by having half the people recall and write about an incident in their lives over which they had no control and having the other half recall and write about an incident over which they had control,” Dr Greenaway said.

Participants were then asked to indicate the extent to which they thought Paul would have made all those correct decisions based on chance alone.

She said 40 per cent of people in the low-control category believed the octopus had psychic abilities.

Only five per cent of people with a condition of high control were believers.

“The people with a low sense of control believed Paul must have precognitive ability – in other words, the ability to predict the future,” Dr Greenaway said.

“It seems that belief in precognition is one way that people can ‘trick' themselves to feeling in control in situations they have no control over.”

Dr Greenaway said it had been known for a long time that control was important to people, but her research provided insights into the lengths people would go to maintain the feeling of control in their lives.

“The bottom line is that people don't like feeling out of control, so they go through a series of psychological ‘gymnastics' to help maintain the perception that they are in control of their lives - and it seems to work,” she said.

Dr Greenaway also looked at how "in control" people felt when in a threatening situation – such as being exposed to terrorism or the global financial crisis.

She found that when people felt low in control in these threatening contexts they were more likely to become hostile and prejudiced towards other people — particularly foreigners.

“This research highlights how when people feel threatened and out of control they take it out on others in an effort to make themselves feel better,” she said.

The findings showed that loss of control had a profound psychological impact that caused people to change their individual beliefs and orientations towards others.

Provided by University of Queensland

"Study shows loss of control leads to paranormal beliefs." July 2nd, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-loss-paranormal-beliefs.html

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