The Myth of Sanity by Marth Stout Multiple Personality Disorder, listed in the DSM-III, is not in the DSM-IV. It was replaced by Dissociative Identity Disorder, joing three other, less extreme, dissociative disorders, and acknowledging that DID is part of a continuum. This continuum starts with normal people who dissociate when they are engrossed in movies or their daily activities, and ends with switchers who have different named personalities. These dissassociations begin as coping mechanisms in difficult/traumatic situations, but continue long after they are useful.
Stout works with trauma victims, many of whom have used dissociation as a protective measure in their lives. Now they find that they have lapses during which they do not know what they have been doing, or during which they are helplessly watching themselves acting differently. Through confronting their childhoods and working through their pasts, these courageous people enrich their lives.
Stout cites as obvious cases of dissociation scenes which don't look obvious to me, even though I was paying attention to what I was reading. She generalizes too much. Her statistics don't always agree with each other. Nonetheless, she has a point and makes it. She does have a chapter on what to do if this book seems to be describing you or someone you know, so if someone you know is zoning out too much or has frequent amnesia, maybe you should read this book.
Happy reading.
