“It needs to be emphasized, however, that the ability of fantasy to achieve a sense of reality is not an indication that the traumatic abuses recalled by patients with multiple personality disorder are fabricated or made-up. What is important to recognize is that the fantasy elaborations that are connected with dissociated states in these patients are efforts at restitution and represent attempts at mastering traumatic experiences through the use of imaginative solutions. This paper is examining the use of fantasy as it participates in the formation of the clinical picture of multiple personality disorder and is not intending to cast doubt on its traumatic origin.” ImaginationFantasyDissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderAlter PersonalitiesImaginary FriendPersonalitiesDissociative IdentitiesFictives Author:Walter C. Young
“KIuft (1985a, b) describes eight year old Tom, who could "space out," but remain aware of partially dissociated alter personalities. One, Marvin, was based on the character Captain Kirk of the TV series "Star Trek," and on the TV series character "Hulk." Marvin also represented Tom's father. Another alter personality was derived from Mr. Spock, who was also identified with his mother. Two female alter personalities had names taken from 'The Flintstones." The use of fantasy is clearly apparent despite the fantasized characters being identifications with real characters in the child's life. Tom gives us a glimpse of the transition of his fantasies becoming dissociated mental structures.” FantasyDissociative Identity DisorderAlter PersonalitiesAltersAlter IdentitiesFictives Author:Walter C. Young
“Traumatic experiences in adults generally do not produce multiple personality disorder but rather states of catatonic withdrawal, out-of-body experiences, fugue states, or psychogenic amnesias.” Dissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderDissociative DisorderDissociative AmnesiaDissociative DisordersFugueOut Of Body ExperienceCatatonic Author:Walter C. Young
“Another patient, Janet, was repeatedly abused by a grandfather who forced her cousin to sexually molest her and put sticks into her vagina. The patient dissociated at the time into a child alter personality, Susie, who remembered the abuse. Susie decided if she had no body, her cousin would not hurt her. Susie imagined she had no body but only her head. The fantasy she had no body to hurt, led to a dissociation of all perceptions of her body and the belief that she avoided pain and her cousin could not hurt her. This mechanism shows the interplay of reality and fantasy in a dissociative defense. Through fantasy, Susie has no body and no pain. Simultaneously, the reality of her torture was recognized as the source of this adaptation. Dissociative defenses adopted her wishful fantasy to solve a brutal experience and its memory.” FantasyTraumaChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderTraumatic ExperiencesDissociative PartsTrauma MemoryAlter Personality Author:Walter C. Young