Comments on: A case of simulated fragmentation

By: Geoff Capp

Geoff Capp — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:45:36 +0000

Cornelia Burwell Wilbur, M.D., graduated from the University of Michigan in 1930, was one of eight women medical college graduates in 1939 and the first female medical student extern at Kalamazoo State Hospital, and therefore definitely “her.”

By: Xenophrenia

Xenophrenia — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:19:29 +0000

I love how everyone is jumping on a mentally disturbed individual stating they are not “that” disturbed as proof that the individual was not “that” disturbed. Says more about those that were just looking to confirm THEIR bias than it actually sheds light on the factual basis of the story .

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:51:33 +0000

I’m not sure if this is intentionally misleading or whether vaughanbell just didn’t read to the end of the NYT piece. Mason later disassociated herself from the letter quoted here, so this isn’t the final word. In fact, she said “someone” had written and delivered it. So in some identity states, she didn’t buy this diagnosis or even her own presentation of herself, and in other identity states, she did.

If by DID or MPD being “not real,” you want to say that there aren’t tiny separate people inside these human bodies, then fine, it’s “not real.” But what people experience is something else.

We all know what it’s like to feel like almost a different person in different contexts, to have slightly different identities as parent, worker, citizen, child. In some people, these different identity states are experienced as more bounded, more dissociated. The phenomenon is not like Sybill or The Three Faces of Eve, but it’s not completely nonexistent, either.

I’m not a shrink; I just have been close to someone who is put together this way, and through her, I have met others. The whole thing is confusing, to them and to those close to them. I’m sure sometimes, it’s just a matter of suggestion from a clinician – but not always. There is more to know. It’s likely that there have been times, as in the Wilbur case, when a clinician pushed the diagnosis onto a patient. It’s also possible that Mason did experience what is called DID. It’s certainly the case that others have. Both clinician overstepping and client experience of ptsd and dissociation could be true at the same time.

People in contexts like this blog should be much less confident that they know what they’re talking about.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:08:08 +0000

Interesting — as you note, not many clinicians will be surprised that this isn’t real.

By: Jacqueline Stone

Jacqueline Stone — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:19:54 +0000

As a clinical psychologist I remained skeptical with regard to DID partly because because those patients I carefully evaluated seemed very interested in receiving disability payments. And I found that these patients seemed well aware of the different personalities they reported. In other words, there was no genuine dissociation.

By: Neuroskeptic

Neuroskeptic — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 08:44:57 +0000

Ah, but maybe the personality that admitted she was making it up, was just another one of the multiple personalities!

That’s the great thing about the hypothesis of multiple personalities. No matter what happens, it’s still an explanation.

By: Nelie

Nelie — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:20:04 +0000

I’m pretty sure Cornelia would be a her, not a him as you have in your abstract when you say “his patient”. I agree with the person who commented above that there appeared to be bidirectional manipulation/deceit going on based on the description in the NYT article. The whole story always sounded unreal in some ways to me and I agree that somewhere there should have been some kind of professional review and skepticism brought to bear. But the truer version of the story also gets at how manipulable “identity” can be.

By: aek

aek — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:53:35 +0000

I read it a little differently, but no less disconcertingly. It seemed to me that the psychiatrist was using the patient both voyeuristically and as career fodder. The manipulation and deceit appeared to be bidirectional.

Different times, but how did DID become advanced and recognized in psychiatry without transparent peer review, critical analysis and plain vanilla evidence? Where is professional skepticism?

The difference between therapy and hucksterism isn’t evident here. At what point does psychiatry lose its privilege to call itself a medical specialty when it repeatedly breaks the social contract?