Yesterday's Dear Abby personal advice column dealt with people suffering from "Multiple Personality Disorder," now tarted up with the new moniker "Dissociative Identity Disorder." Here's the letter I sent her:
Today's column discusses Dissociative Identity Disorder. But nowhere did you mention that many mental health professionals believe DID is just the latest in a long string of disorders that originate in the therapist's office, not in patients' real lives.
The symptoms feel real to sufferers, and may even continue to feel real long after sufferers learn that they have been hoodwinked.
You can see a good discussion in Scientific American Magazine--a reputable mainstream publication written for educated lay readers.
The article is titled
"Brain Stains: Traumatic therapies can have long-lasting effects on mental health."
See it at:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brain-stains&print=true
The article shows how people who feel very troubled--and who are very suggestible--go to a therapist for help and come out more troubled than they were before they came in.
The therapist gives them a narrative that's internally consistent, even if it's at war with reality. But we humans are suckers for a coherent narrative, as every defense attorney--and every prosecutor--knows.
Many innocent people have suffered greatly because of hoaxes like DID.
One other cause for concern: if DID weren't a "fad disorder" it would be distributed evenly around the globe. Instead it's reported in the U.S. and Canada at least 10 times as often as anywhere else, and was only reported here after several movies were made popularizing it ("Sybil" and "Three Faces of Eve").
--sign me
"More than Skeptical"
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