The
Switch Process in Multiple Personality Disorder and Other State-Change Disorder
Review Journal:
“The Switch Process in Multiple Personality Disorder and Other State-Change
Disorder” (Frank W. Putnam, MD, UNC
Mental Health Specialist)
I.
Journal
Summary
This paper was exploring about state of
consciousness in term of state-change or switching in psychiatric disorders.
This paper was focusing on the state-change that happening in Multiple
Personality Disorder.
Frank (1988) described about the state
change by explaining the state of consciousness, from the definition, the
properties until the development of state on the infant/child. In the development task a dysregulation of
state that being seen in psychiatric conditions such as MPD can happen because
of the aberrant caretaker behavior. As they grow from infant to adult it is
becoming more difficult to discriminate the discrete state of consciousness
because of an increasing number of states. By the
time they reach adulthood that child may have hundreds of discrete states and
be able to make transitions among them almost seamlessly.
Multiple personality can
be thought of as a disorder in which the individual's consciousness is
organized
into a series of discrete dissociative states. These dissociative
states can be developed during childhood because of severe trauma, etc. At
least there are two processes that make the distinctiveness and separation of
the personalities. First, the data suggest that the trauma must occur
relatively early in development and almost always before puberty. Second, it is
thought that it is adaptive for the traumatized child to enter dissociative
states of consciousness, which appear to heighten the state-dependentness of
variables such as affect, memory retrieval, and behavior. After binding these
variables, over time in a way that is still not understood, the repeated entry of
these heightened dissociative states builds up alter personalities.
II.
Research
Method
The method that was being used is a Longitudinal
Approach. Frank (1988) did it by observing the subject for every behavioral
that happened. Then, when he found the same behavioral that occurred he would
use the measurement device to determine the rate of the switch that happened
every minutes or hours.
The subjects
that were being used were nine MPD patients that had six or more personalities.
In this case the behavioral that determining a new stable state of an alter personality
was based on continuous observation and verbal
interaction with the subject until it was established from the individual's
facial expression, behavior and verbal report that a new alter personality was
present and stabilized.
The
result is there are different times that occur between the switch, alter personality state switches in MPD patients by
majority occurred relatively rapid, typically in under five minutes. Switches can be triggered by a wide range of stimuli,
such as depressive trains of thought, social interactions, or even expectation
that can lead to state changes.
III.
Opinion
The research is really
interesting because the topic is about MPD, which is something that still
cannot be theoretically explain until now. Even though this journal was
published in 1988 it contain a thorough information about the switch process
of Psychiatric Disorder ,especially
Multiple Personality Disorder.
IV.
References
Frank W. Putnam, M.D (1988). The Switch Process in Multiple Personality
Disorder and Other State-Change Disorder. Available on BSCW Shared Workspace
(http://hc.rediris.es/pub/bscw.cgi/d4606050/Putnam-Switch_process_multiple_
personality_disorder.pdf).
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