by Jakarta Alchura

Created on: February 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 21, 2007

While some professionals in the mental health field dispute the validity of research and published cases of patients diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, other professionals in the field disagree. The current controversy among the profession is more about what the proper symptoms are, what diagnosis is the best, and what treatments are most effective rather than whether or not the disorder is real. The opposing arguments serve as an indicator that more research and publications are required to further understand Dissociative Identity Disorder.

A mother gives birth and a child is born. The child is socialized, thus learning how to live in a society, and grows into maturity. The child then grows into an adult and their mind matures. The child interacts with others and with the world, sometimes aware and sometimes not. It's these varying degrees of awareness that separate each of us from each other. It would seem that the more awareness we possesses in our minds, then the more power we have in the world.
The child, for example, sees that it is snowing outside by looking out of the window at the backyard and wants to build a snowman. The child has the normal amount of awareness for one that is in the processes of being socialized and so the child has series of thoughts about the snow and how to achieve what he or she wants. The child knows that the door is locked and that the rules of the house forbid him or her to go outside without getting permission first and so the child's mind then deliberates and comes to a conclusion. The child decides to go and get permission because the consequences of going outside without it are not worth the amount of fun the child was expecting to have. The child's level of awareness influenced his or her actions and subsequent thoughts to act in a certain manner. The older that child becomes, the more complex his or her thought process will become and inevitably their levels of awareness will increase as well.
Now, what if something happens to the child while his or her socializing is still taking place? Something traumatic happens to the child, for instance, and forces the child's level of awareness to recede. Something so devastating happened to the child that his or her mind becomes entangled like a ball of yarn, with the awareness, memories, and feelings all mixed into each other. When the child's mind becomes scrambled, how can he or she be expected to function normally in conditions such as these? And so, the child

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