This field of study has always fascinated me. A study about how one studies. It's such a hard yet soft science that's filled with so many viewpoints that contributes to every field, without anyone knowing. As my program of study in college has slowly shifted to AI research, the field is even more perplexing. I've found answers for many questions since I started, only to come across even more complex questions. So, I felt as though it'd be a good subject to discuss here.

The purpose of this thread is to have discussions on the human psyche and subjects that surround it. Remember that honesty and openness is the key to psychological study, so please keep this in mind as people discuss subjects in this thread.


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So the first subject of this thread shall be focused on DID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder). It's said to be an American psychological disorder as it appeared once the explorers ventured to the new world. Yet, it's been diagnosed across the world while holding a subjective position as a mental disorder. Regardless of this, there are two known ways of treating this disorder: one, minimizing symptoms or two, unifying the personalities. Here's the tricky question: how can the psychologist determine which personality is the original, and is it really ethical to suppress the other personalities rather than see them as a part of a larger person?

First I would like to start off by saying that I have no experience with dealing with psychology (haven't even taken the psychology classes at school) yet I to find the subject very fascinating.

I would like to focus on viewing this by looking at a person with DID, but not treating their behaviour as a disorder.

First of all, can we really expect people to always act the same and have the same persona in every situation. Sure there is a definite personality in people that we can see everyday, whether it be at school, at sports practice, during work etc. However, sometimes the need arises that we need to change how we act, for example during an emergency or if you are going to attend a very formal meeting. I know personally that I do not talk to everyone the same. I adjust how I act and talk depending on who it is and the situation, for people naturally respond better when the person(s) they are socializing with are similar to them. Even if its just mimicking small actions like how they hold their hands and what leg they lean on or that they might say to-may-to instead of to-mah-to. Maybe people who are diagnosed with DID just adapt and form different personalities to experience society in different ways. They could start this as a little bit of a personal experiment but if we keep something up for long enough, we start to believe. If you tell a lie long enough, you yourself will start to believe it to be true.

What we see as multiple personalities might just be one that just changes with society and how they want to experience life. Their personality might not be so definite that we can always determine what they are going to do, but rather what has happened to guess how they might want to experience society at that moment. For example, if we take for example food. If "one personality" likes chocolate ice cream and "two personality" like vanilla. However, "one" might have a cake with cocoa in it and cream, and did not like it, because they remember being sick after having the same type of cake 3 years ago at a party. So they wish to build upon that and 'finally realise' that they do not like chocolate ice cream anymore because of the association of the cream texture and the association of cocoa and chocolate. Thus the person may have appeared to have become more mellow in remembering that and not eating chocolate ice cream. So one orders vanilla ice cream and we see the mellow figure with this ice cream and see personality "two". These events and thoughts for that single person might just take place over a very large wave length. Something much broader and non-defined that we are used to so whenever we see a event like the one with the ice cream above, we assume that there must be two personalities by singling out that point in time; when if fact the change has been very broad and person knows no different.

This simply might just be a matter of our perception and the human need to standardise everything. By defining the standard, we base everything else around it. So as soon as something doesn't fit within any bounds of the standard, outliers we shall say, then we try and find a reason within our bounds that explains why something stepped outside it. Note this is all just human definition and perception.

I would just like to add that I write to suggest new ideas, even if they do not have the support of our 'standards' to this thread. I think the main point of discussion is to find something that cannot be solved by perceiving within our standards.

I wonder if, when taking a course on psychology, the origins of it get taught. Because if they were, many would leave and not become psychiatrists. If you don't know, they formed the framework for Nazi Germany.

Read Phillip Day's The Mind Game then come back and reply to this post. Mental Illness's didn't exist a hundred years ago, and only seemed to become a problem once psychiatrists began practicing.

Not diagnosing and healing.

Practicing.

Read The Mind Game.

I didn't really touch on that point but if you it relate back to perception, we only notice things when they are out of the ordinary or get in our way. So, people start practicing and investigating, and suddenly we all notice "these ill people". Might our perception just have merely changed? Quite the point I was suggesting.

And thanks for the new reading material :D I need something interesting to read.

I wonder if, when taking a course on psychology, the origins of it get taught. Because if they were, many would leave and not become psychiatrists. If you don't know, they formed the framework for Nazi Germany.

Read Phillip Day's The Mind Game then come back and reply to this post. Mental Illness's didn't exist a hundred years ago, and only seemed to become a problem once psychiatrists began practicing.

Not diagnosing and healing.

Practicing.

Read The Mind Game.

The real problem I have with this book, as I've been reading around, is that a lot of Day's argument focuses on events in history, and not the human body. Sure, like every humanistic field of study, there are two sides to every coin, but the book appears to illuminate one usage of psychology rather than the field itself. Long before the Nazi party existed, Aristotle and many philosophers sought out to learn about humanity. Psychology is just an applied form.

The book may mention how Mental Illness didn't exist before WWII, but earthquakes used to be thought up as a Greek god pounding a trident against the ground. With history, one has to remember that new studies and research has been developed that was classified as mystic before the studies existed. Take for example, the term Ethernet. It's a network cable for a computer. Ethernet is really short for Luminiferous aether, which is the concept of some realm and reality that's outside of the humans domain (to be exact, the dimension light travels). Without the theory of relativity, we would still assume that light had it's own dimension that it travels through, but now we know different.

In this sense, the same can be said about Psychology. The field was always there, it was just classified as something mystic or understood rather than studied. I'm still going to give the book a try, but I have a feeling that it's going to be more of a philosophical crunch against the field.

Here's the tricky question: how can the psychologist determine which personality is the original, and is it really ethical to suppress the other personalities rather than see them as a part of a larger person?

Assuming that the condition developed at the later stages of the person's growth, I guess you can identify the true personality by looking at some of the clues from his/her past? By divulging some of the important clues from the person's past, like for example his blog accounts, the email he's sent before or the type of friends he's had, won't this help us give a general idea of his character? In our society today, everyone is content with the belief that the personality you were born with is the one true personality, so I'm just providing the remedy in lieu with society's thinking, even though there might be a possibility that the unleashed secondary personality might be the real one instead.

If you want to disregard society's thinking, then we have to go deeper & study the characteristics of a "true" personality. What makes us who we are, apart from the others? If one personality prefers strawberries, while the other prefers grapes, then what in blazes makes one of them more true than the other? Even distinct comparisons, like one guy believes in rape while the other believes in legal sex, cannot easily tell us which of the two is the correct personality, unless you want to follow society's narrow thinking, because the guy's true personality might be evil and that he desires rape all this while. Some have argued that the personality that is perfect for the body & mind's adaptation is the real one (Personality A is intelligent, personality B is dumb, therefore B eradicated] but I can't agree on a surface-level answer like that. It's like trying to say that you can't write on black paper, only white, so black papers should have never existed and should be abolished. Hey, we have WHITE PENS okay??!

If you want to talk about a person born with that condition, then religiously, both personalities are his, therefore an amalgamation is the appropriate route. But scientifically, umm........ I HAVE NO ANSWER!! Science has yet to reach the boudaries of behavioural intelligence, therefore science is out. In terms of common sense, the one showing signs of independant behaviour/action from the human's known physical/mental capacity is the fake one. [If only my body was powerful enough to destroy you.... does that explain?] In terms of logic, the answer is left to debate and research.

One good thing that would definitely debunk the fake personality is the true personality's knowledge of the fake personality, wthout the fake knowing. But this goes down the drain if both of them try to claim each other fake. But this wouldn't be DID rite? This would be something like turning into a vampire with no memory of it the next morning.

Your second question M, it really very much depends. To me, I believe that if there is an ability for the mind to host two personalities, then supressing one of them would be cruel and saddening. But if the mind cannot afford two vacants, then supressing them would be neccesary for the mind's proper functions. But then again, if the mind is hosting an evil and a just personality, then it would be paradoxial for our feelings, happy to get rid of an evil personality, while sad having taken away a special part of that individual.

I have a suggestion for a cure, why not erase both personalities? If you delete a non-important system file from a compter program's data cache, what would happen to it if you start up the prog once again? Of course it would regenerate! Would that be applicable for the human mind? :heh:

Damn you M for making me stretch my mind to extreme limits! XD Just kiddin'. ^_^ I like this type of topics actually, it's food for thought. :)

P.S - All these reminds me of Sora and Roxas... :cry:

DID is a very scary disorder. Wither how much you believe in how real the disorder is, the fact that someone is consciously cycling through multiple identities in such rapid succession and with violent outcomes is almost just as troubling as if it were a true disorder, if that makes sense.

But I personally believe in the validity and reality of DID. It first off makes sense: someone is facing something highly traumatic, and their main, over-all psyche and identity can't/doesn't want to deal with it, so the mind creates a different one that will go through with the event to later be pushed away; the main psyche thus doesn't remember going through the traumatic event.
I guess you can say, that's OK, I mean, what's wrong with repressing things? DID is the most extreme case of repressing memories, because it's not that you are trying to forget it, but rather someone else in your head has those memories and is waiting for the right stimulus to be triggered, come out, and overtake the main psyche.

What troubles me the most about DID is you don't know it's going on, you don't know it's happening or already happened to you, because you don't remember it. You don't know if your mom, your dad, sister, brother, friends, have it, until the alternative identities begin to manifest, which more then not ends up violent. I'm especially scared of it because my parents were children during the Khmer Rouge, and it's most prevalent in people who faced trauma as children, so I've literally just been sitting and praying and watching since I've learned about it in class.

I am studying a sociopsychology unit right now. First to all, not all psychology theories support that we have a lasting definite personality. There are many theories about the idea of "self" so the discussion isn't entirely interesting or new. :P

How can the psychologist determine which personality is the original?
I have no idea. I guess they have their "assessment tools". I think that unless there is a scientific method to proof, in terms of brain scan patterns, it is really hard to tell which is the original or whether the person is "faking" it unintentionally.

Is it really ethical to suppress the other personalities rather than see them as a part of a larger person? I think it is ethical if the person feels better. In the first place, the person would have the right to refuse treatment unless they are a danger to themselves or others. Seeing that it is the choice of at least one of the 'main' personality, I think it is quite ethical as long as it does not bring harm to the larger person. And also the illness or unique personality characteristic, whatever it is, could be bringing some problems to the person for the person to want to seek treatment. If suppression means that the person can function more normally in their daily lives, I don't see why it should be that great an ethical consideration.