Describe the treatment that is generally used to treat patients with dissociative identity disorder. What is the rationale for each part of the treatment?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The strategies that therapists use today in treating DID are based on accumulated clinical wisdom. The fundamental goal is to identify cues or triggers that provoke memories of trauma, dissociation, or both and to neutralize them. More important, the patient must confront and relive the early trauma and gain control over the horrible events, at least as they recur in the patient's mind. To instill this sense of control, the therapist must skillfully, and slowly, help the patient visualize and relive aspects of the trauma until it is simply a terrible memory instead of a current event. Because the memory is unconscious, aspects of the experience are often not known to either the patient or the therapist until they emerge during treatment. Hypnosis is often used to access unconscious memories and bring various alters into awareness. Because the process of dissociation may be similar to the process of hypnosis, the latter may be a particularly efficient way to access traumatic memories. DID seems to run a chronic course and seldom improves spontaneously, which confirms that current treatments, primitive as they are, have some effectiveness.