What Is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

DID is a dissociative disorder involving identity disruption and discontinuity in memory, agency, perception, or behavior. ^{1 2 3}

Main ideas

• DID is usually more covert than media portrayals suggest.
• Symptoms may include time loss, internal voices or communication, identity shifts, depersonalization, derealization, flashbacks, and uneven access to memories or skills.
• The diagnosis is about a pattern of disruption and distress, not about how dramatic someone appears from the outside.

Questions for reflection

• What disruptions are observable in daily life?
• What helps the system orient to the present?
• What would make care safer and less destabilizing?

Clinical note

DID does not make someone less real, less responsible, or less worthy of care.

Footnotes

1. International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12(2), 115-187. pp. 115-187. Full adult DID treatment guideline PDF. ↩

2. 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. ↩

3. Palm, M. (2024). Dissociative identity disorder. In Understanding psychological disorders. Baylor University Libraries. Open textbook chapter. Accessible overview chapter. ↩