A case study investigation of the development and treatment of alter personalities in dissociative identity disorder

Progress in the study and treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) has been hampered by ideological debate regarding its validity. This is particularly the case when patient's suffering from DID also report ritualistic abuse. Part of the difficulty has been that past studies have not established independent checks to assess whether alters are artefacts introduced by therapeutic bias. This study addressed this issue by using independent judges to test the validity of a patient being treated for DID who claimed ritualistic abuse. The judges were 16 clinicians with an average of 21 years experience in their respective disciplines. The study also examined the development and treatment of alter personalities through a detailed examination of case material. The patient had been in continuous therapy with the author and treatment had been conducted using the self psychology model. The study involved three phases.

Grantor dc:publisher

Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia

Year dc:date

2006

Author dc:creator

• Brown, Ian

• Dissociation
• ritual abuse
• DID
• Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Repository record dc:identifier

https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/53

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ro.ecu.edu.au:theses-1053