Disassociative Identity Disorder and Alters

[Magical Realist]

I find the phenomenon of alters or headmates interesting in the context of the nature of personhood and identity in human experience. What is the nature of our self that it can exist in such a plural/collective form? That such wholly constituted and conscious selves can coexist, socialize with us, and even take control of the body sheds light on other phenomena such as the channeling of "higher beings", "tulpamancy" or the deliberate creation of thought forms, imaginary friends, mediumship, and even demon possession. My own experience with "voices" has always had this disassociative "alter" aspect in that the voices are related to and communicated with as if they were real persons of different ages and genders and their own personality traits. I draw from my knowledge of Jungian psychology the positive interpretation that these persons are at root aspects of my total unconscious Self, much as persons and creatures in dreams are conceived to be--such archetypal "others" as the shadow, the anima, the hero or protector, the child, the trickster, and God. Here's some fascinating details about alters you might not be aware of:

"An alter or "headmate" is a dissociated self state that may be associated with either dissociative identity disorder (DID) or other specified dissociative disorder subtype 1 (OSDD-1). In cases of DID, most if not all alters can take recurrent executive control of the body in which they reside. Alters each have their own perception of self as a unique individual or entity and do not view themselves as only an aspect of a complete person. Externally, alters can display different degrees of emotional expressiveness, behave in different ways, and have different skills and abilities related to sensory-motor functioning. They have different thoughts, perceptions, and memories relating to themselves and to the world around them. They may perceive themselves as having an age, gender, sexuality, appearance, source, or even species that may or may not match that of the system's actual body, and they may or may not be aware of these discrepancies. (Some alters may see what they expect to see when they look into mirrors and are highly distressed to realize that the body that they are in does not match their internal perception of how they should look.) Often, alters have their own wants, needs, desires, and opinions. They may have psychological disorders and physiological reactions that are unique to them or experience the body’s psychological and physiological disorders in different ways or to different degrees than do other alters in the same body.

To quote "Dissociative Multiplicity and Psychoanalysis" from "Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: DSM-V and Beyond:"

"The alters may be few or many, of various ages, including older than the body, same- or cross-gendered, hetero- or homosexual, alive or dead, with either or both coconsciousness and copresence to varying degrees, which may not be commutative (i.e., may be one-way), communicating not at all, or through hallucinations, or through direct thought transfer, manifesting different physiological signs in the body when out, clustered in various arrays of dyads, subgrouping, layers, purposes, and so on. Subhuman, animal, or imaginary alters are not uncommon, with likely links to children’s fantasy. When out, a given host or alter may appear globally to be mentally and behaviorally whole and normal or an exaggerated caricature or a single-function agent, and so on, but not necessarily congruent with the age and gender of the body" (Dell & O'Neil, 2009).1


Alters are also referred to as parts, alternate personalities, personalities, fragments, "headmates," internal family members ("sisters," "brothers," "cousins," etc), or self states.

Collectively, all of the alters in one body are known as a system."

https://did-research.org/did/alters/

[C C]

I find the phenomenon of alters or headmates interesting in the context of the nature of personhood and identity in human experience. What is the nature of our self that it can exist in such a plural/collective form? That such wholly constituted and conscious selves can coexist, socialize with us, and even take control of the body sheds light on other phenomena such as the channeling of "higher beings", "tulpamancy" or the deliberate creation of thought forms, imaginary friends, mediumship, and even demon possession. My own experience with "voices" has always had this disassociative "alter" aspect in that the voices are related to and communicated with as if they were real persons of different ages and genders and their own personality traits. I draw from my knowledge of Jungian psychology the positive interpretation that these persons are at root aspects of my total unconscious Self, much as persons and creatures in dreams are conceived to be--such archetypal "others" as the shadow, the anima, the hero or protector, the child, the trickster, and God. Here's some fascinating details about alters you might not be aware of:

"An alter or "headmate" is a dissociated self state that may be associated with either dissociative identity disorder (DID) or other specified dissociative disorder subtype 1 (OSDD-1). In cases of DID, most if not all alters can take recurrent executive control of the body in which they reside. Alters each have their own perception of self as a unique individual or entity and do not view themselves as only an aspect of a complete person. [...] https://did-research.org/did/alters/

The messiness of cases like "Sybil" (Real 'Sybil' Admits Multiple Personalities Were Fake) casts a shadow over the DID psychology market. No doubt, there can be diverse sub-entities or templates for such residing in an individual's brain. So any universal skepticism about the condition should actually revolve around whether one of those can literally seize executive control of the body.

This clarification that a shift is usually of ambiguous nature does much to assuage that, so that DID agnosticism can be further refined to being focused on people who do exhibit or claim to undergo radical identity transitions:

"Contrary to media portrayals, most people with DID do not exhibit dramatic shifts in personality in obvious ways. Alters can manifest subtly, and individuals may function in daily life without drawing attention to their condition."

And even in the extreme context... Just as professional human actors can immediately assume a practiced character role by the mental decision to do so, it would seem that a DID sufferer could voluntarily assume the personality of one of the alters, for whatever stimulus or reason. Especially if that infomorph is actively babbling or complaining about something in the background of one's thoughts. The persona and its distinct speech and behavior patterns are already there to hand the reins temporarily to.

[Magical Realist]

Mills: So, as I mentioned in the introduction, there's a long history of literature, movies, and TV portrayals of this phenomenon, and now it's back in the spotlight again with this TV show Moon Knight. How well do you think these portrayals of DID over the years have reflected the reality of the disorder? Has it ever been portrayed well on screen or in books?

Brand: I think there are almost always abysmal, stigmatized, stereotyped versions of the disorder, more so than just about any disorder out there. Men tend to be portrayed as serial killers, monsters. Women can be portrayed that way, but more often as sex fiends. I'm actually doing a study on this right now to ask people living with DID how have they been impacted by these media portrayals, and the stories, the quotes that were getting back are just so painful. Like, they hated themselves, they didn't want their, even their clinicians, their mental health professionals to know about the disorder. And in some cases, even the professionals were scared of them because of these stereotypes. They're very damaging.

Mills: And in the movies, DID is often shown as a dramatic and a sudden switch between personalities. Is that what it looks like in real life to an observer?

Brand: I'm so glad you're asking me that, because that occurs in less than 5% of cases. Of course the media has to show these dramatic shifts that, somebody comes in talking and baby talking, then the next time they come in swaggering and a cigarette draped out of their mouth. So that's so the audience can figure it out. If DID really look like that, it wouldn't be so underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.

It's often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia because more than 75% of people who have DID hear voices, or it's misdiagnosed, for example, as bipolar disorder, because there's these mood shifts, they look like moody people. Now, neither of those disorders have amnesia associated in, they're not trauma disorders, so it's not—DID is not at all schizophrenia, it's not at all bipolar disorder. And those media portrayals obviously contribute to some of the reason why there's so much under diagnosis of DID."

https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaki...y-disorder