Dissociation and Empathy Myths

Dissociation can affect emotional access and memory, but it does not erase empathy or humanity. ^{1 2 3}

Main ideas

• A part may hold fear, anger, numbness, caregiving, or shutdown; no single state represents the whole person perfectly.
• Emotional amnesia can make empathy harder in the moment without meaning someone is incapable of care.
• Recovery can improve communication and accountability across states.

Questions for reflection

• Is empathy absent, blocked, delayed, or held by another part?
• What repair is needed when disconnection causes harm?
• What helps the system access care without flooding?

Clinical note

Numbness is not proof of cruelty. It is a signal to slow down and understand what is offline.

Footnotes

1. Brand, B. L., Sar, V., Stavropoulos, P., Kruger, C., Korzekwa, M., Martinez-Taboas, A., & Middleton, W. (2016). Separating fact from fiction: An empirical examination of six myths about dissociative identity disorder. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 24(4), 257-270. Abstract and overview of six myths. Text-fragment link to the article's summary claim. ↩

2. Reinders, A. A. T. S., et al. (2012). Fact or factitious? A psychobiological study of authentic and simulated dissociative identity states. PLOS ONE, 7(6), e39279. Psychobiological comparison study. Open access PLOS ONE article. ↩

3. Pietkiewicz, I. J., Banbura-Nowak, A., Tomalski, R., & Boon, S. (2021). Revisiting false-positive and imitated dissociative identity disorder. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. Differential diagnosis article. Open access diagnostic caution article. ↩