The treatment of dissociative identity disorder in an eating disorder residential treatment setting

Abstract

ObjectiveChild maltreatment, dissociation and dissociative disorders have been noted in relationship to eating disorders (EDs) for decades, and their co‐occurrence generally is associated with greater morbidity, self‐harm and mortality. The concomitant presentation of dissociative identity disorder (DID) with an ED (ED + DID) is especially challenging, and there is limited information on approaches to and the effects of integrated treatment for this serious comorbidity, especially in higher levels of care. There are also limited treatment resources for such patients, since they are often turned away from specialty units due to lack of expertise with or bias toward one or the other disorder.MethodWe report our experience with a case series of 18 patients with DSM‐5 defined ED + DID (mean age (SD) = 32.6 (11.8) years) admitted to residential treatment (RT) and assessed using validated measures for symptoms of ED, major depression (MD), PTSD, state–trait anxiety, quality of life (QOL), age of ED onset, and family involvement during treatment. All patients received integrated, multimodal, trauma‐focused approaches including those based on DID practice guidelines, principles of cognitive processing therapy (CPT), and other evidence‐based approaches. Fifteen of 18 patients also completed discharge reassessments, which were compared to admission values using paired t‐tests.ResultsFollowing integrated, trauma‐focused RT, patients with ED + DID demonstrated statistically significant improvements in all measures, with medium (anxiety) to high (ED, PTSD, MD, QOL) effect sizes.DiscussionThese results provide positive proof of concept that patients with ED + DID can be effectively treated in a specialty, trauma‐focused ED program at higher levels of care.Public SignificanceEDs and dissociative identity disorder (DID) are related conditions, but little is known about treating patients with both conditions. We describe the clinical features and integrated treatment of 18 such patients, 15 of whom completed discharge assessments. Significant clinical improvements were found in multiple domains (ED, PTSD, mood, anxiety, quality of life), which demonstrate positive proof of concept that ED + DID can be effectively treated in a specialty, trauma‐focused ED program.