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The problem of “otherness” in dissociative disorder
Although our understanding of dissociative pathology has made a significant progress, there are many crucial problems to be further explored and understood. One of them is what I would call the matter of “otherness” among parts of personalities in individuals with dissociative identity disorder (DID). How far are they apart and different, in terms of their sense of being on his/her own? Do we grant different personality to each of them, or regard as different “parts” of a personality?
I consider that our trend is obvious. We no longer use alter (which is Latin for other) to describe different parts of personality. We abandoned the time-tested term “multiple personality disorder” in order to avoid connoting that there are different personalities in an individual’s mind. The matter of “otherness” is at least temporarily settled in the direction of not fully respecting it.
But how is it close to the reality? Or at least reality of the patient’s experiences?
The matter of otherness can be paraphrased in the form of a question. “Is the mind of DID patient separated into parts, temporarily or permanently?” Those who consider “temporarily” might assume that these parts should eventually get fused and integrated, probably because it originated from a single mind. Those who consider “permanently” would think that fusion or integration might be a far cry as the therapeutic goal. Those with the latter stance might not be quite sure that the origin or parts of personality might be a separation from the original one, but some creation de nouveau, which I hypothetically assume. Although these stances are rather clear as I state now, this issue is not altogether discussed in depth.
On this issue, I draw on the discussion of O’Neil who tackled on to this issue from the standpoint of ambiguity of the term splitting.