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Dissociation Quotes

Browse 275 quotes about Dissociation.

Dissociation Quotes

“It can be quite challenging to constantly remind ourselves that the reality we experience is merely a construct of our own minds. Despite our efforts to ground ourselves in the present, we often find ourselves getting caught up in the illusion of this fabricated world. However, it is imperative that we do not lose sight of the fact that none of this is real. The material possessions, societal norms, and societal expectations that we often place great value on are merely man-made constructs. It is crucial to maintain a sense of detachment and perspective, and to remember that ultimately, true reality lies beyond the physical realm.”

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Book:Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia
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“Now and again there occur alterations of the 'emotional' and the 'apparently normal' personalities, the return of the former often heralded by severe headache, dizziness or by a hysterical convulsion. On its return, the 'apparently normal' personality may recall, as in a dream, the distressing experiences revived during the temporary intrusion of the 'emotional' personality.”

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Book:Shell Shock in France, 1914-1918: Based on a War Diary
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“The DID patient should be seen as a whole adult person with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life. Despite patients’ subjective experience of separateness, clinicians must keep in mind that the patient is a single person and generally must hold the whole person (i.e., system of alternate identities) responsible for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities, even in the presence of amnesia or the sense of lack of control or agency over behavior. From p8 International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision: Summary version. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12, 188–212.”

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Author:James A. Chu
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“Isolation of catastrophic experiences. Dissociation may function to seal off overwhelming trauma into a compartmentalized area of conscious until the person is better able to integrate it into mainstream consciousness. The function of dissociation is particularly common in survivors of combat, political torture, or natural or transportation disasters.”

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Author:Marlene Steinberg
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“The government researchers,aware of the information in the professional journals, decided to reverse the process (of healing from hysteric dissociation). They decided to use selective trauma on healthy children to create personalities capable of committing acts desired for national security and defense.” p. 53 – 54”

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Author:Cheryl Hersha Lynn Hersha
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“DID is often dragged into the debates about recovered and false memory. For example, it might be alleged that a person recovered memories from a state of dissociation. Such a claim reflects a misunderstanding of dissociation and a confusion with repression (Mollon 1998). If a piece of mental content (e.g. a feeling, a memory, a fantasy, a perception) is in a state of repression, it is not directly available to consciousness. Its existence may be inferred from its displaced and disguised expression. For example, a patient who is angry with the therapist may speak of anger with someone else - a kind of unconscious hinting. Gradually the patient may become more consciously aware of the previously repressed material. By contrast, the feelings, memories and other mental contents ofdissociated parts of the mind may be quite accessible to consciousness in that state of mind. Those contents may not be available, however, when the patient is in a different state of mind, or when another personality is in executive control. It is not that the objectionable mental content is kept in 'the unconscious (a horizontal splitting, implying a hierarchical gradation of consciousness), but rather that consciousness is distributed among the dissociated parts of the mind. Thus, in state of mind A, the patient may speak of a narrative of events of which he or she appears completely unaware when in state of mind B. When asked what she thought about the accounts of abuse that she had presented, in a childlike state of mind, during a previous session, a patient replied that she had no idea whether the memories were true or not because they were not her memories. In this way, what is claimed in one state of mind may be disowned in another stale of mind. There may be a repudiation not only of the content of what has been said, but also of the fact of ever having said it.”

PtsdRepressionDissociationRepressed MemoriesDissociative AmnesiaRecovered MemoriesTrauma Memory
Book:Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“Dissociation can be interpreted as an “emergency defense,” or a “shut off mechanism.”[6] According to Allen and Smith,[6] it is understood as an attempt by the individual to “prevent overwhelming flooding of consciousness at the time of trauma.” It is argued that the individual subconsciously cannot tolerate being present emotionally during the trauma but cannot control the situation, and therefore protects him- or herself from experiencing it in the moment via dissociation.”

DissociationAbuse SurvivorsTraumatic ExperiencesDissociative DisorderDissociativePsychological DefensePsychological DefenceDissociatingDissociative State
Author:Julie P. Gentile
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“Do You Have DID? Determining if you have DID isn’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, many clinicians and psychotherapists have such difficulty figuring out whether or not people have DID that it typically takes them several years to provide an accurate diagnosis. Because many of the symptoms of DID overlap with other psychological diagnoses, as well as normal occurrences such as forgetfulness or talking to yourself, there is a great deal of confusion in making the diagnosis of DID. Although this section will provide you with information which may help you determine if you have DID, it is a good idea to consult with a professional in the mental health field so that you can have further confirmation of your findings.”

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Book:Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“Identity confusion is defined by the SCID-D as a subjective feeling of uncertainty, puzzlement, or conflict about one's own identity. Patients who report histories of childhood trauma characteristically describe themes of ongoing inner struggle regarding their identity; of inner battles for survival; or other images of anger, conflict, and violence. P13”

PsychologyMental HealthPsychiatryDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiplicityMultiple Personality DisorderDissociativeDsmTextbookReference WorksScid DSteinburg
Book:Interviewer's Guide to the Structured Clinical Interview for Dsm-IV Dissociative Disorders
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“The numbing effects of scrolling down an endless newsfeed are both the problem and its own relief. Over time, this works to delirious effect. Periodically, after long projects or particularly lengthy binges, I feel saturated and dissociate. No longer able to process information, I let my unread messages pile up in my inbox and notifications from friends accumulate whilst I lie for hours on my sofa during the weekends, unable to do anything, but unable to do nothing either.”

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Book:Break the Internet: The Truth About Influencers
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“I have come to believe with fervent passion that the focus on multiple personalities is missing the point. dissociative identity disorder is not rare; it is not unique; it is not special. It is just a logical set of symptoms to some terrible trauma. It is a normal way to react to very abnormal childhood treatment. In fact, I only have it because I am normal. If I had not reacted normally to chronic trauma and disrupted attachment, I would not have developed it.”

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Author:Carolyn Spring
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“And if we do speak out, we risk rejection and ridicule. I had a best friend once, the kind that you go shopping with and watch films with, the kind you go on holiday with and rescue when her car breaks down on the A1. Shortly after my diagnosis, I told her I had DID. I haven't seen her since. The stench and rankness of a socially unacceptable mental health disorder seems to have driven her away.”

PrejudiceShameMental HealthMental IllnessDenialRejectionRidiculeAbandonmentDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationSociety DenialFake FriendsMentally IllMental Health StigmaDissociative DisorderMental Illness StigmaPsychiatric DisordersSocially UnacceptableSocial Rejection
Book:Living with the Reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Campaigning Voices
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“Mary was my first encounter with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which at that time was called multiple personality disorder. As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting and emergence of distinct identities experienced in DID represent only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life.”

Mental HealthDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiple Personality DisorderMental Life
Book:The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
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“In 2006, there is no army of recovered memory therapists, and Dr McNally’s assumptions about patients with PTSD and those working in this field are troubling. Owing to past debates, those working in the PTSD field are perhaps more knowledgeable than others about malingered, factitious, and iatrogenic variants. Why, then, does Dr McNally attack PTSD as a valid diagnosis, demean those working in the field, and suggest that sufferers are mostly malingered or iatrogenic, while giving little or no consideration is given to such variants of other psychiatric conditions? Perhaps the trauma field has been “so often embroiled in serious controversy” (4, p 816) for the same reason Dr McNally and others have trouble imagining the traumatization of a Vietnam War cook or clerk. One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients." Cameron, C., & Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.”

DenialPtsdRepressionDissociationSociety DenialMental Health StigmaTraumatizedTrauma SurvivorsTrauma MemoryMental Illness DiscriminationIatrogenicMalingeringRecovered Memory Therapists
Author:Colin Cameron
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“It has become clear that, as Janet observed one hundred years ago, dissociation lies at the heart of the traumatic stress disorders. Studies of survivors of disasters, terrorist attacks, and combat have demonstrated that people who enter a dissociative state at the time of the traumatic event are among most likely to develop long-lasting PTSD.”

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Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Although Dissociative Disorders have been observed from the beginnings of psychiatry, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Dissociative Disorders (Steinberg 1985) was the first diagnostic instrument for the comprehensive evaluation of dissociative symptoms and to diagnose the presence of Dissociative Disorders.”

Mental IllnessSkepticismDissociative Identity DisorderDiagnosisSkepticDissociationMultiple Personality DisorderMultiple PersonalitiesDissociative DisorderDissociativeDissociative DisordersMpdDissociative StatesDiagnostic Criteria
Book:Structured Clinical Interview for Dsm-IV Dissociative Disorders (Scid-D)
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“Jenny couldn't believe herself a multiple. She was a mother, a nurse, not that screwball who appeared on the screen like some dysfunctional figment of her imagination trying to find a life. Still, she was coming to a realization that accepting who she was would be the jailer's key to liberate her from this cuckoo's nest.”

Dissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiplicityMpdSelf StigmaTrauma ExperiencesMultipple Personality Disorder
Book:Twenty-Two Faces
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“In the absence of strong political movements for human rights, the active process of bearing witness inevitably gives way to the active process of forgetting. Repression, dissociation, and denial are phenomena of social as well as individual consciousness.”

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Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Just as sometimes I wondered if Grandpa had ever existed, sometimes I wondered if I truly existed myself. As I was running, I could see myself from outside myself: a skinny girl with the flapping shorts and too- big a T-shirt, always watching the other girls at school, a girl in a pink bedroom sitting with a book propped on her knees, the words she was reading entering her mind, some sticking like gluey never to be forgotten, others disappearing instantly, I could remember everything and remember nothing. I would watch a movie and recall every scene as if I had written the script, then watch another movie another day and be unable to recall it at all.”

RunningAbuseVictimMental HealthMemoryTraumaMovieSurvivorSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationAmnesiaMultiple Personality DisorderRitual AbuseDissociativePaedophile Ring
Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“There, there, best to bring it all up,' she said. My memory was in shreds. Imagine a photograph cut into narrow strips then jumbled up. Everything is there, but you can't see the whole picture and even the strips have no bearing on reality. I did know I had consumed a large amount of alcohol. But I must have done something crazier than just being found drunk to have a nurse sitting by my bed. I thought it would be a good idea to say something and planned it for several seconds. 'She's all right,' I said. 'Who is?' asked the nurse. 'Alice. I'm all right now.' As I spoke I wondered if I had said something wrong. didn't sound like me. There were so many voices muttering in the background it was hard to tell.”

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Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions. - Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5”

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Author:James A. Chu
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“The shamans are interesting because they exhibit many of the dissociative features of the MPD patient. They differ from the MPD patient in that the shamans were healthy and use their dissociation in a culturally integrated way. The MPD patient tends to be dysfunctional and socially isolated.”

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Book:Dissociative Identity Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Features, and Treatment of Multiple Personality
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“Whilst DID can be diagnosed with the presence of only two or more distinct parts/'self-states", survivors of chronic and complex abuse, or of organized or ritualized abuse may have many, many more parts. This is called "polyfragmentation" - quite literally "many fragments".”

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Book:Our House: Making Sense of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Making Sense of Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“Secondary structural dissociation involves one ANP and more than one EP. Examples of secondary structural dissociation are complex PTSD, complex forms of acute stress disorder, complex dissociative amnesia, complex somatoform disorders, some forms of trauma-relayed personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS).. Secondary structural dissociation is characterized by divideness of two or more defensive subsystems. For example, there may be different EPs that are devoted to flight, fight or freeze, total submission, and so on. (Van der Hart et al., 2004). Gail, a patient of mine, does not have a personality disorder, but describes herself as a "changed person." She survived a horrific car accident that killed several others, and in which she was the driver. Someone not knowing her history might see her as a relatively normal, somewhat anxious and stiff person (ANP). It would not occur to this observer that only a year before, Gail had been a different person: fun-loving, spontaneous, flexible, and untroubled by frightening nightmares and constant anxiety. Fortunately, Gail has been willing to pay attention to her EPs; she has been able to put the process of integration in motion; and she has been able to heal. p134”

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Book:The Dissociative Mind
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“...the vast majority of these [dissociative identity disorder] patients have subtle presentations characterized by a mixture of dissociative and PTSD symptoms embedded with other symptoms, such as posttraumatic depression, substance abuse, somatoform symptoms, eating disorders, and self-destructive and impulsive behaviors.2,10 A history of multiple treatment providers, hospitalizations, and good medication trials, many of which result in only partial or no benefit, is often an indicator of dissociative identity disorder or another form of complex PTSD.”

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Author:Bethany L. Brand
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“It's one thing to have your partner tell you he or she has multiple personalities, and it's another to walk in on your partner and find him or her sitting on the bedroom floor, speaking in a child like voice, having a tea party with stuffed animals.”

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Book:Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“Some dissociative parts of the personality, living in trauma time, may experience the same emotion no matter the situation, such as fear, rage, shame, sadness, yearning and even some positive ones just as joy. * Other parts have a broader range of feeling. Because emotions are often held in certain parts of the personality, different parts can have highly contradictory perceptions, emotions, and reactions to the same situation.” * This explains many feelings, emotions, and doubts about the unknown haunting us at times. * Awareness and discovering the inner world may help, tremendously.”

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Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“Some dissociative parts of the personality, living in trauma time, may experience the same emotion no matter the situation, such as fear, rage, shame, sadness, yearning and even some positive ones just as joy.”

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Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“But as much as this is a soldier's reason d'etre, it is not often that you hear a soldier explicitly talk about 'killing'. The k-word as a verb is instead often disguised and supplanted by any number of other euphemisms. In precise and technical military parlance, reflecting the ever more precise and technically removed means of killing, the 'enemy' becomes the 'target'. But for the soldiers who personally 'engage' these 'targets', these objects are colloquially 'slotted', 'dropped', 'hit', 'fragged', 'sawn in half', 'smashed' or just plain 'shot'. Then the soldier will have achieved the noun of a 'kill'. The author's supposition is that such words are used by the soldier in combat as an attempt to mentally dissociate himself from the reality of his actions, so he can continue to operate as a soldier - and perhaps, when all is finally said and done, as a human being back home.”

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Book:Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken By War
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“Dissociation is numbness and nothingness; it is a feeling of being lost; it is floating on a cloud that threatens to suffocate; it is automatic speech and action without awareness or control; it is looking at the world and blinking to try to remove the blurry fog; it is hearing and seeing the immediate world and simultaneously feeling very far away; it is raw fear; it is unfamiliarity in familiar places; it is possession; it is being haunted everyday by unknown monsters that can be felt but not seen (at least not by others); it is looking in the mirror and not knowing who is looking back; it is fantasy and imagination; and, above all else, it is survival. Dissociation is all of these things and none of them at once.”

DepressionMental HealthDissociationNumbnessDissociative DisorderDissociatedDissociative Symptoms
Author:Noel Hunter
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“In the mirror, my eyes looked red and puffy from crying. That was as expected. But I was surprised to notice that I looked older than I should be. I didn't expect to be dressed up for work. I looked down at my shoes and feet, and they didn't look like mine. Alarmed, I splashed my face with cold water and looked again. The reflection didn't show who I thought I was. As I washed my hands, they didn't look like mine either. They looked too big. I was wearing rings. It was all very startling and confusing. I felt a little panicky and didn't want to think about it too hard. Disoriented, I banged into the doorway on my way out of the restroom and thought, Why is this door so small? Why am I taking up so much space in this hall? Whose hands are those? Whose eyes and face was I seeing? My thoughts began to race and I started having trouble catching my breath. Then I felt the fuzziness in my head, followed by calmness, and finally numbness.”

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Book:The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“To achieve a diagnostic assessment, it is important to remember that diagnosis does not hinge on the subjects answer to any single question on the SCID-D. A positive response regarding one dissociative symptom often has several possible ramifications, which must be explored through persistence with related questions. Isolated dissociative symptoms may occur in a number of different psychiatric syndromes, both dissociative and nondissociative. An isolated dissociative symptom, such as use of an alternate name or an amnestic episode, is insufficient grounds for diagnosis. To provide evidence sufficient for an accurate diagnosis, the symptom must exist in combination with other symptoms that, as a group, conform to the characteristic pattern of one of the five disorders oudined in the Diagnostic Work Sheets in Appendix 2.”

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Book:Interviewer's Guide to the Structured Clinical Interview for Dsm-IV Dissociative Disorders
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“Complex structural dissociation involves an extensive range of phobias that exacerbate and maintain dissociation and impede functional adaptation. They include the phobia of (1) mental actions (i.e., an individual's inner experience of emotions, thoughts body sensations, needs, wishes); (2) dissociative parts of the personality; (3) attachment and attachment loss; (4) traumatic memory; and (5) change and healthy risk taking (van der Hart et al., 2006).”

Dissociative Identity DisorderDissociationStructural Dissociation
Author:Kathy Steele
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“Based on theoretical analysis, clinical observations, and some research findings (e.g., Kluft & Fine, 1993; Nijenhuis, Van der Hart, & Steele, 2002; Putnam, 1997; Reinders et al., 2003, submitted; Steinberg, 1995), as well as on 19th and early 20th century literature on dissociation (cf., Van der Hart & Dorahy, in press), we propose that traumatization essentially involves a degree of dissociative division of the personality that likely occurs along the lines of innate action systems of daily life and defense— what has been called structural dissociation of the personality (e.g., Nijenhuis et al., 2002; Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, Steele, & Brown, 2004). Dissociation of the personality develops when children or adults are exposed to potentially traumatizing events, and when their integrative capacity is insufficient to (fully) integrate these experiences within the confines of a relatively coherent personality.”

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Author:Onno van der Hart
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“Dr. Summer explained once again that he believed I was remembering real abuse that happened to me when I was growing up, that the thoughts were memories frozen in time by a dissociative process. We were piecing together a clear picture of what had happened to me so we could put my memories in their proper place: the past. He explained that the pain was my body remembering what had happened. He had explained the process many times before, just like this, but I still didn't understand. The words wouldn't connect. I asked, "How can I be a lawyer, be married? How can I be functioning if all this happened to me? I don't understand.”

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Book:The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder
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