Dissociative identity disorder and the sociocognitive model: Recalling the lessons of the past.

Abstract

In a recent article in this journal, D. H. Gleaves (1996) criticized the sociocognitive model (SCM; N. P. Spanos, 1994) of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and argued in favor of a posttraumatic model (PTM) in which DID is conceptualized as a consequence of childhood abuse and other traumatic events. The present authors demonstrate that (a) many of Gleaves's arguments were predicated on misunderstandings of the SCM, (b) scrutiny of the evidence regarding the psychopathology and assessment of DID raises questions concerning the PTM's conceptual and empirical underpinnings, (c) the treatment literature suggests that iatrogenic factors play an important role in the etiology of DID, and (d) the evidence linking child abuse to DID is more problematic than implied by Gleaves. The present authors conclude that Gleaves's analysis underemphasized the cultural manifestations of multiple role enactments and that the history of DID imparts a valuable lesson to contemporary psychotherapists.

The trauma model of dissociation: Inconvenient truths and stubborn fictions. Comment on Dalenberg et al. (2012).

“…Reaction time data confirmed that the identity supposedly amnesic for autobiographical information associated with the identity harboring the allegedly dissociated memories of CSA recognized personal information associated with the traumatized identity. These results falsify the notion of complete interidentity amnesia in DID and shift the burden to proponents of the TM to explain exactly how people come to view themselves as possessing multiple discrete personalities (see Lilienfeld et al, 1999, for the FM account of this phenomenon).…”

Directed forgetting between, but not within, dissociative personality states.

“…The nature and etiology of identities or "alters" is still a matter of debate, however, that is mainly centered around two competing views (see Elzinga, van Dyck, & Spinhoven, 1998;Lilienfeld et al, 1999). Whereas the posttraumatic model maintains that alters can best be conceptualized as a defensive response to childhood trauma (see Gleaves, 1996;Putnam, Guroff, Silberman, Barban, & Post, 1986), the sociocognitive model conceptualizes alters in terms of cultural scripts that are shaped by psychotherapists, media portrayals and sociocultural expectations (see Spanos, 1994).…”

Development of the Hebrew-Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (H-MID): A Valid and Reliable Measure of Pathological Dissociation

“…For example, many clinicians who treat dissociative patients consider dissociative symptoms to be caused by split-off parts of the mind or personality. On the other hand, sociocognitive theorists have argued that dissociative "symptoms" are behavioral enactments that have been shaped by therapists and the media (e.g., Lilienfeld, Kirsch, Sarbin, Lynn, Chaves, Ganaway, & Powell, 1999). Although the authors' conceptual allegiances clearly lie with the former rather than the latter, the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (MID) does not address itself to the mechanisms of dissociation, psychological or otherwise.…”