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FLATOW: So you would - how would you treat a patient like Sybil if she showed up in your office B R A N D: Well, first I would start with a very thorough assessment, using the current standardized measures that we have available to us that assess for the range of dissociative disorders but the whole range of other psychological disorders, too. I would need to know what I'm working with, and I'd be very careful and make my decisions slowly, based on data about what she has. And furthermore, with therapists who are well-trained in dissociative disorders, we do keep an eye open for suggestibility. But that research, too, is not anywhere near as strong as what the other two people in the interview are suggesting. It shows - for example, there's eight studies that have a total of 11 samples. In the three clinical samples that have looked at the correlation between dissociation and suggestibility, all three clinical samples found non-significant correlations. So it's just not as strong as what people think. That's a myth that's not backed up by science." Exploring Multiple Personalities In 'Sybil Exposed' October 21, 2011 by Ira Flatow .Bethany L. Brand
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With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical — not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery].- Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)Bethany L. Brand
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Dissociative identity disorder is conceptualized as a childhood onset, posttraumatic developmental disorder in which the child is unable to consolidate a unified sense of self. Detachment from emotional and physical pain during trauma can result in alterations in memory encoding and storage. In turn, this leads to fragmentation and compartmentalization of memory and impairments in retrieving memory.2, 4, 19 Exposure to early, usually repeated trauma results in the creation of discrete behavioral states that can persist and, over later development, become elaborated, ultimately developing into the alternate identities of dissociative identity disorder.Bethany L. Brand
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..the vast majority of these [dissociative identity disorder] patients have subtle presentations characterized by a mixture of dissociative and PTSD symptoms embedded with other symptoms, such as posttraumatic depression, substance abuse, somatoform symptoms, eating disorders, and self-destructive and impulsive behaviors.2, 10 A history of multiple treatment providers, hospitalizations, and good medication trials, many of which result in only partial or no benefit, is often an indicator of dissociative identity disorder or another form of complex PTSD.Bethany L. Brand