Anyone who would like to discuss 'multiple personality disorder' or 'dissociative identity disorder' please respond to this post. I need to learn as much as I can about the condition because I believe Our Lord identified that condition when He spoke to the folks in His hometown synagogue saying;
(Isaiah 61:1) "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD anointed me To bring good news to the humble; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners;
For some 20 years I was a Licensed Mental Health Counselor [who is also a believer in Jesus]. I have had much experience with people who I believe genuinely have DID as well as those who THINK they do not but in reality do not or else have some related condition. It is much harder to get an accurate diagnosis in cases of lower spectrum dissociation which often confuses those of us in the mental health field. Once, I took on a client who
said she had DID but, after a time, I came to the conclusion that she did not. One reason is that she was INTO the disorder and hung out with other "groupies" on the internet. People who really have DID are terrified to reveal their condition to others. This makes sense when you consider that DID is all about concealment and hiding.
Another professionals have to sort through is the
degree to which an individual
dissociates. In some people, the parts are more or less separated than others. There is a matrix based on
the level of trauma the person has experienced
vs their
ability to dissociate.
Neurologically, I conceptualize DID as result of the fact that the human brain is not a single unitary system but consists of
multiple sub-systems each of which can operate
more or less independently when the stress becomes high enough. When a person is
traumatized (which happens when they have experienced some stressor has have exceeded their ability to process it. Young children (especially 4-5 year olds) who have
less resilience, and a
less developed sense of identity and a less logical way of thinking tend to fragment more than others. Treating such individuals requires a lot of time, close involvement and commitment to the process as well as a lot of prayer. I have seen many abandon the process when it gets too intense. In my experience, such a client is very likely not to continue in the process.