Introduction Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), also known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), is characterized as a “complex form of post-traumatic dissociative disorder primarily related to severe, repetitive childhood abuse or trauma usually beginning before the age of 5” (Kluft, Fine, 1993). DID patients generally have histories that are mixtures of “recurrent sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of a highly sadistic, intrusive nature” (Putnam, 1989). There is a common misconception that a DID patient is not actually consisted of identities of personalities in one body, but parts of an individual that do not function smoothly. In essence, DID is the splitting off or dissociating from an experience and then splitting off from the …show more content…
Since Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a result of the conceptions of inaccurate cognitive schema constructed when the individual undergoes repetitive trauma, CBT helps the patient disclose and alter the trauma-induced distortions of thought and functions to correct them so that the individual may function as an active member of society. One of the major tasks of CBT is to make available the entire system of personalities the knowledge and secrets held by specific alter personalities because a generalization of knowledge will erode the need for separateness and begin the movement towards resolution (Putnam, 1989). The goal of therapy is to remove the boundaries that keep thoughts, feelings, memories, behaviors, and skill compartmentalized in separate personality states (Ross, 1989) and to return the person to a functional outpatient status as quickly as possible while teaching the person coping and recovery skill that can be applied on an outpatient basis in ongoing living and therapy (Spira, 1996). Since, the ultimate work of therapy is to facilitate an increased coordination among alters such that they function together in resolution or integrate into one entity