All in the Mind - Many Selves, One Body: Dissociation and early trauma

I just finished a longish research paper on the diagnosis and treatment of dissociative identity disorder, so this is a cool podcast to have discovered in my feeds today.

I cited heavily in my paper from the August Piper article linked to below - he is a useful critic (if often lazy in his thinking - making him easily refutable).

Many Selves, One Body: Dissociation and early trauma

Listen Now - 22082009 |Download Audio - 22082009 [Play]

We all dissociate to a degree—compartmentalising major traumatic experiences in our psyche to protect ourselves. But Dissociation Identity Disorder is the extreme end, where a person might present multiple selves or 'alters' to the world without fully knowing it—swapping clothes, life histories and personalities each time they 'switch'. Don't miss this firsthand account.

Show Transcript | Hide Transcript

Guests

Professor Warwick Middleton
Brisbane based psychiatrist in private practice
Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, La Trobe University
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Queensland
Chair, Cannan Institute
Director, Trauma and Dissociation Unit, Belmont Hospital

Zoe Farris
Queensland Association of Mental Health

Further Information

All in the Mind blog for your comments and discussion
Join presenter Natasha Mitchell, and add your comments

Lifeline Australia
24 hour phone counselling service, nationwide. Phone 131114

Details of support groups in Australia for mental illness

ARAFMI (Australia)
Support for families, carers and friends of people experiencing mental health issues.

SANE Australia (mental health advocacy and support organisation)
Includes a business hours helpline

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Conceptualization, Assessment and Treatment
Details of workshops hosted by Professor Warwick Middleton in August, 2009.

Trauma, Mentalization, and Dissociative Processes (Conference 30 Oct - 1 Nov 2009, Surfers Paradise, Queensland)
Hosted by the the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.

Dissociative Identity Disorder info sheet
Brochure prepared by the Princess Alexandra Hospital Health Service District Mental Health Service, Queensland.

The United States of Tara (starring Toni Collette, directed by Steven Spielberg)
Airing on ABC 1, Wednesday nights 9.30pm (from 29 July 2009)

Publications

Title: When Me Means Me: Multiple Personality - A View from the Inside
Author: Zoe Long (now Farris) & Co
Publisher: Queensland Association of Mental Health Inc, 1996 (booklet)
ISBN 0 646 29994 8

Title: Dissociative Identity Disorder: An Australian series
Author: Warwick Middleton and Jeremy Butler
Publisher: Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 1998 Dec;32(6):794-804
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10084343

Title: Dissociative Identity Disorder: Multiple Personalities, Multiple Controversies
Author: Scott Lilienfield and Steven Jay Lynn
Publisher: in Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology (edited by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, Jeffrey M. Lohr), 2004
URL: http://books.google.com.au/books
Search for the book in the Google books link above, and then click on the chapter on the contents page.

Title: A Clinician's Understanding of Dissociation: Fragments of an Acquaintance
Author: Richard P Kluft
Publisher: in Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders: DSM-V and Beyond (edited by Paul F Dell, and John A O'Neill), Routledge, 2009

Title: Historical conceptions of dissociation and psychosis: Nineteenth and earlt twentieth century perspectives on severe psychopathology
Author: Warwick Middleton, Martin Dorahy, Andrew Moskowitz
Publisher: in Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation (edited by Andrew Moskowitz, Ingo Scahfer and Martin Dorahy), John Wiley and Sons, 2008

Title: A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Author: Paul F Dell
Publisher: Psychiatric Clinics of North America (Psychaitr Clin N Am), 2006, 1-26

Title: Owning the past, claiming the present - perspectives on the treatment of dissociative patients
Author: Warwick Middleton
Publisher: Australiasian Psychiatry, Vol 13, No 1, March 2005

Title: Remembering the past, anticipating the future
Author: Warwick Middleton, Lisa De Marni Cromer, Jennifer Freyd
Publisher: Australasian Psychiatry, Vol 13, No 3, September 2005
URL: http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/articles/mcf05.pdf

Title: The Persistence of Folly: A Critical Examination of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Part I. The Excesses of an Improbable Concept
Author: August Piper, Harold Merskey
Publisher: Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 49, No 9, September 2004
URL: http://ww1.cpa-apc.org:8080/Publications/Archives/CJP/2004/september/piper.pdf

Presenter

Natasha Mitchell

Producer

Natasha Mitchell/Anita Barraud

Tags: All in the Mind, Many Selves, One Body, Dissociation, early trauma, Natasha Mitchell, Psychology, consciousness, trauma, alters, parts, selves, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Warwick Middleton, Zoe Farris