Chapter 2. History of Dissociation (1) Psychoanalytical Viewpoint (6)

I did not care for these Fairbairn‘s notions because of their materialistic and reified nature; he discussed these notions as though they really exist in one’s mind. However, in people with DID, they seem to literally exist in the form of different personalities. Each of them would show up with different profile, tone of voice and sets of memories. Some of them has a role of the main character (“Central Ego “while another could be aggressive and self-destructive (“Internal Saboteur”), and still another can be sensual/sexual (“Libidinal Ego”). It is as though Fairbairn had the condition of DID in his mind when he came up with these notions of internal ego structures.



Dissociative disorders, “credulous camp” and “incredulous camp”


I briefly mentioned my encounter with dissociative patients at the Menninger in the late 1980s, but around that time the staff at the Menninger themselves were divided into two groups in the face of patients with dissociative disorder, especially DID. There were, so to speak, “credulous camp” and “incredulous camp” as to whether they accept the existence of these dissociative conditions. Some Menninger staff showed particular difficulty in understanding and acknowledging them as their training background was purely psychoanalytic.
As a matter of fact that type of split existed already at the beginning of the last century; Freudians were close to the “incredulous camp”, whereas Janet was, of course, the head of the “credulous camp.”
In the history of psychiatry and psychology, dissociative phenomena attracted many clinician’s attention and that for some people was a turning point in their career. They started to come up with some theory of mind that involve and explain dissociative phenomenon. For them, facing dissociative phenomenon should have been a determining experience in their careers.