This is a complicated topic that resurfaces from time to time in the psychiatric literature. These types of arguments tend to take the presentation of people meeting criteria for DID at face value, and then argue that it doesn't exist, which is sort of beside the point.
No one (or few in the field) really believe that people meeting criteria for DID have independent identities in the sense of having different psychological entities in the same body, with different memory systems, personalities, and so forth. It's a strawman argument.
Even DID researchers point this out, but it tends to get ignored by individuals writing pieces like this.
The truth is, there are patients who present with symptoms of DID, as is the case with other dissociative and related disorders. They are almost certainly "fake" at some level, but the phenomenon of presenting with neurophysically implausible symptoms nonetheless exists, and has its own set of issues. It's sort of akin to psychopathy and lying: a psychopath might lie, but you don't say that predatory dishonesty isn't a problem because what they say isn't true. In the same way, someone presenting with dissociative symptoms is doing the thing they're doing, and it deserves some sort of distinct label.
Contrary to what the poster has written, longitudinal and chart review studies do show that people with DID have sexual abuse histories at higher rates than other types of patients, like close to 80% of cases. And contrary to stereotype, the typical DID patient is rather shy and avoidant of attention.
I guess it's odd to me in some ways because while it was important to try to determine whether or not people presenting with alternate identities really have "neurocognitively separate selves", finding that they don't doesn't mean you should write off the idea that there is something qualitatively different about the sets of problems involved when someone does do this sort of thing. You could relabel it , which might be fine, but this area is already full of controversy (should we open the can of worms of somatic symptom disorder, for example?).
So it is like that there is an ICD code for lycantropy - that doesn't mean the patients actually turn into werewolves, but that they delusionally believe they do.
No one (or few in the field) really believe that people meeting criteria for DID have independent identities in the sense of having different psychological entities in the same body, with different memory systems, personalities, and so forth. It's a strawman argument.
Even DID researchers point this out, but it tends to get ignored by individuals writing pieces like this.
The truth is, there are patients who present with symptoms of DID, as is the case with other dissociative and related disorders. They are almost certainly "fake" at some level, but the phenomenon of presenting with neurophysically implausible symptoms nonetheless exists, and has its own set of issues. It's sort of akin to psychopathy and lying: a psychopath might lie, but you don't say that predatory dishonesty isn't a problem because what they say isn't true. In the same way, someone presenting with dissociative symptoms is doing the thing they're doing, and it deserves some sort of distinct label.
Contrary to what the poster has written, longitudinal and chart review studies do show that people with DID have sexual abuse histories at higher rates than other types of patients, like close to 80% of cases. And contrary to stereotype, the typical DID patient is rather shy and avoidant of attention.
I guess it's odd to me in some ways because while it was important to try to determine whether or not people presenting with alternate identities really have "neurocognitively separate selves", finding that they don't doesn't mean you should write off the idea that there is something qualitatively different about the sets of problems involved when someone does do this sort of thing. You could relabel it , which might be fine, but this area is already full of controversy (should we open the can of worms of somatic symptom disorder, for example?).