Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2005, at 0:10:51
In reply to Re: for Dinah » Dinah, posted by Pfinstegg on February 12, 2005, at 23:47:10
I believe dissociative disorders (just like mood disorders and other kinds of disorders) are on a continuum with normal functioning. Some people have *more* of a problem and others have *less* of a problem that is true. But there is no radical difference in kind between those with and those without. And there can be a fuzzy middle area where it can be genuinely indeterminate.
I appreciate most disagree with me - but I don't care.
I have reasons to believe all that - but I won't go there today.
One woman claimed her alternative identities developed when her father used to pretend he was abusing someone else.
Some people claim that people develop alternative identities later in life when they try to make sense of their experiences.
Some people claim that people develop alternative identities still later in life when their therapists suggest this way of making sense of their experiences.But what is the difference? It is a way of making sense of ones experiences. Some people may have more or less extreme experiences to make sense of but it is a way of making sense of them.
A difference in degree not in kind.
The trouble with taking sexual abuse to be a causative factor in *any* psychiatric / psychological diagnosis is that the clinician who buys into that will believe there must have been abuse. The client who buys into that will believe there must have been abuse.
Let the Freudian error not be repeated:
'I no longer accepted her declaration that nothing had occurred to her, but assured her that something *must* have occurred to her... Finally I declared that I knew very well that something *had* occurred to her and that she was concealing it from me; but that she would never be free of her pains so long as she concealed anything. By thus insisting I brought it about that from that time forward my pressure on her head never failed in its effect (Freud, 1953-74 in Webster, 2003 p.11)
After that performance is it any wonder people come up with stories of abuse?
When clinicians and clients both believe that it must have happened in order to justify their present distress????I think these may have been the cases Freud had (or at least should have had) in mind when he recanted that sexual abuse claims were true...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:456369
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050211/msgs/457027.html