The Social Construction of Multiple Personality Disorder

Lynn, Steven Jay; Pintar, Judith

doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-2672-5_28

Cited by 3 publications

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“…In fact, even people who are not especially fantasy prone or suggestible may experience occasional dissociative symptoms in the face of stress. Objective trauma may enable the emergence of dissociative symptoms in the short-term (e.g., depersonalization and derealization) by increasing stress levels, which in turn promote (a) an accurate perception of circumstances being unreal following totally unexpected and/or horrifying events such as a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or rape (Lynn & Pintar, 1997); (b) posttraumatic dissociative reactions that are the product of imagination (e.g., viewing the self from out of the body, imagining oneself in another place); and (c) disrupted sleep, which appears to predispose to certain dissociative experiences (van der Kloet, Merckelbach, Giesbrecht, & Lynn, 2012). Moreover, such stress-produced experiences may persist on a more long-term basis in certain predisposed individuals prone to negative emotionality, especially in the presence of coexisting psychopathology.…”

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confidence: 99%

The trauma model of dissociation: Inconvenient truths and stubborn fictions. Comment on Dalenberg et al. (2012).

Lynn

Lilienfeld

Merckelbach

et al. 2014

Psychological Bulletin

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Dalenberg et al. (2012) argued that convincing evidence (a) supports the longstanding trauma model (TM), which posits that early trauma plays a key role in the genesis of dissociation; and (b) refutes the fantasy model (FM), which posits that fantasy proneness, suggestibility, cognitive failures, and other variables foster dissociation. We review evidence bearing on Dalenberg et al.'s 8 predictions and find them largely wanting in empirical support. We contend that the authors repeat errors committed by many previous proponents of the TM, such as attributing a central etiological role to trauma in the absence of sufficient evidence. Specifically, Dalenberg et al. leap too quickly from correlational data to causal conclusions, do not adequately consider the lack of corroboration of abuse in many studies, and underestimate the relation between dissociation and false memories. Nevertheless, we identify points of agreement between the TM and FM regarding potential moderators and mediators of dissociative symptoms (e.g., family environment, biological vulnerabilities) and the hypothesis that dissociative identity disorder is a disorder of self-understanding. We acknowledge that trauma may play a causal role in dissociation but that this role is less central and specific than Dalenberg et al. contend. Finally, although a key assumption of the TM is dissociative amnesia, the notion that people can encode traumatic experiences without being able to recall them lacks strong empirical support. Accordingly, we conclude that the field should now abandon the simple trauma-dissociation model and embrace multifactorial models that accommodate the diversity of causes of dissociation and dissociative disorders.Keywords: dissociation, dissociative disorder, dissociative identity disorder, trauma, sociocognitive modelThe notion that people dissociate to cope with trauma has its roots in the writings of Janet (1889/1973). This trauma model (TM) remains influential among some clinical scholars (e.g., Dalenberg et al., 2012), who contend that trauma is the key player in the genesis of dissociation. Nevertheless, as we discuss later, advocates of the TM have often neglected to articulate trauma's precise role in the cause of dissociation. Critics of the TM (e.g., Giesbrecht, Lynn, Lilienfeld, & Merckelbach, 2008, 2010Lynn, Lilienfeld, Merckelbach, Giesbrecht, & van der Kloet, 2012;Pope & Hudson, 1995) Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Steven Jay Lynn, Psychology Department, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY 13902. E-mail: stevenlynn100@gmail.com This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.Psychological Bulletin © 2014 American Psychological Association 2014 0033-2909/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0035570 896 etiology of dissociation and dissociative disorders. 1 An early alternative to the TM, the sociocognitive model (SCM; Lili...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

The trauma model of dissociation: Inconvenient truths and stubborn fictions. Comment on Dalenberg et al. (2012).

Lynn

Lilienfeld

Merckelbach

et al. 2014

Psychological Bulletin

Self Cite

129

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We (Lynn & Pintar, 1997a, 1997bLynn, Pintar, & Rhue, 1997) have begun to sketch a social-narrative model of dissociation that has some bearing on understanding revictimization. Traditional conceptualizations of dissociation conceive of it as an intrapsychic phenomenon, a disturbance of feeling, cognition, and memory.…”

Section: A Social-narrative Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%