Switching and Passive Influence | DID-Research.org (2023)

FAQs

DID research passive influence? ›

Passive influence can be described as intrusions from alters that are not currently prominent in the mind or using the body. This may manifest as ego-alien thoughts, feelings, emotions, opinions, preferences, urges, or actions.

"A DID diagnosis has been blamed for misdiagnosis of other entities, patient mismanagement, and inadequate treatment of depression.

What Is Switching? People with dissociative identity disorder have at least two distinctly different identities, but some believe as many as 100 can emerge. 3 Switching is the process of shifting from one identity state to another. This can occur slowly, with obvious signs, or very fast.

DID was called multiple personality disorder until 1994, when the name was changed to reflect a better understanding of the condition.

Transition from one personality to another is referred to as “switching.” This usually occurs within seconds to minutes, but can also be gradual, taking hours or days to complete. This is rarer.

Consider passive voice when: The agent is unknown, unimportant, or obvious to the reader. The agent is less important than the action of the sentence.

The disorders most often form in children subjected to long-term physical, sexual or emotional abuse or, less often, a home environment that's frightening or highly unpredictable. The stress of war or natural disasters also can bring on dissociative disorders. Personal identity is still forming during childhood.

Why might it be difficult to get diagnosed? You might have symptoms of other mental health problems as well as dissociation. If your doctor is more familiar with these mental health problems, they may only diagnose these problems without realising that you also have a dissociative disorder.

Some patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience significant dissociative symptoms. This is often the case with patients who have experienced chronic traumatization including sexual, physical, and psychological abuse as well as severe neglect during childhood.

Common triggers include stress or substance abuse. Managing stress and avoiding drugs and alcohol may help reduce the frequency of different alters controlling your behavior.

How do you tell if someone with DID is switching? ›

Family members can usually tell when a person “switches.” The transitions can be sudden and startling. The person may go from being fearful, dependent and excessively apologetic to being angry and domineering. He or she may report not remembering something they said or did just minutes earlier.

Someone with DID may feel very detached from experiences or even forget doing or saying something that others witnessed. The gaps in memory, confusion, and stress of living with the subjective sense of having “not-me” experiences can become distressing.

DID was called multiple personality disorder up until 1994 when the name was changed to reflect a better understanding of the condition—namely, that it is characterized by fragmentation or splintering of identity, rather than by proliferation or growth of separate personalities.

The structural model of dissociation

According to Van der Hart et al's structural model of dissociation (The Haunted Self, 2006), dissociative identity disorder is a case of tertiary dissociation with multiple ANPs and multiple EPs, whereas OSDD is a case of secondary dissociation with a single ANP and multiple EPs.

Dissociative identity disorder was previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. Symptoms of dissociative identity disorder (criteria for diagnosis) include: The existence of two or more distinct identities (or “personality states”).

The names of the alters often have a symbolic meaning. For example, Melody might be the name of a personality who expresses herself through music. Or the personality could be given the name of its function, such as “The Protector” or “The Perpetrator”.

When an alter is not fronting, we can still have an awareness of one another in “the inner world” which is basically where alters go when they aren't in control of the body. If you are the one fronting, you can concentrate on the inner world and “see” it in your mind's eye.

A person living with DID may have as few as two alters or as many as 100. The average number is about 10. Often alters are stable over time, continuing to play specific roles in the person's life for years.

Examples. PASSIVE VOICE: My first trip abroad will always be remembered by me. PASSIVE VOICE: My first trip abroad is one I will always remember. ACTIVE VOICE: I will always remember my first trip abroad.

A passive sentence is a sentence where the subject does not perform the action of the verb. In fact, in a passive sentence, the action of the verb is done to the subject. For example: The cake was eaten.

What is the purpose of passive? ›

The passive voice allows speakers and writers to place emphasis on the receiver of an action.

Although there are no medications that specifically treat dissociative disorders, your doctor may prescribe antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications or antipsychotic drugs to help control the mental health symptoms associated with dissociative disorders.

Dissociation happens when a person feels a disconnection between oneself and his or her body. Being in a dissociated state may feel like spacing out or mind wandering. There may be a sense of the world not being real. People might watch themselves from seemingly outside their bodies.

Symptoms of a dissociative disorder

feeling disconnected from yourself and the world around you. forgetting about certain time periods, events and personal information. feeling uncertain about who you are.

You Can Have DID Even if You Don't Remember Any Trauma

But that doesn't necessarily mean that trauma didn't happen. One of the reasons that DID develops is to protect the child from the traumatic experience. In response to trauma, the child develops alters, or parts, as well as amnesic barriers.

It doesn't have to have been caused by a traumatic or stressful event. Many people think that this disorder might be more common than previously thought.

Causes and risk factors

People of any age, ethnicity, gender, and social background can develop DID, but the most significant risk factor is physical, emotional, or sexual abuse during childhood.

When one is pathologically angry due to chronic dissociation or repression of existential or appropriate anger, the threshold for anger is gradually diminished. Almost anything can then evoke irritability, annoyance, anger, or even rage—all inappropriate overreactions to the current circumstance.

Trina was demonstrating a “dissociative shutdown,” a symptom often found in children faced with a repeated, frightening event, such as being raped by a caregiver, for which there's no escape. Over time, this response may generalize to associated thoughts or emotions that can trigger the reaction.

When a person experiences severe trauma, their identity, including personality and emotions, goes through a process of fragmentation. This is when the body divides traits and feelings, and groups them into smaller sections, keeping some of them hidden until a safe space for expression is provided.

What does switching feel like? ›

They may appear to have fazed out temporarily and put it down to tiredness or not concentrating; or they may appear disoriented and confused. For many people with DID, switching unintentionally like this in front of other people is experienced as intensely shameful and often they will do their best to hide it.

(2015) recently identified emotional switching, which refers to the tendency to make large changes between positive and negative emotional states over time, as a possible defining characteristic of the emotion dynamics observed in BPD.

Alters (headmates) can switch for all types of reasons depending on the trigger. Switching between headmates is usually involuntary, and can cause a great amount of distress with the alter. Every DID system is unique. Some people with DID have more control over their switching than other people with DID.

Sometimes the alters are imaginary people; sometimes they are animals. As each personality reveals itself and controls the individuals' behavior and thoughts, it's called "switching." Switching can take seconds to minutes to days.

✘ Myth: Survivors with DID can just switch on demand if needed for a task or if someone simply asks for them. Plainly put, this is just not possible.

Sometimes the voices are talking directly to the core person, while other times the voices are just talking among themselves. The voices can be very different: young or old, male or female, high-pitched or low-pitched. Sometimes, the voices all sound the same.

People with dissociative identity disorder can still have successful relationships. Consistent therapy is the only treatment, and can help them and their partners manage the anxiety, depression, and confusion that tend to come with the condition.

In a dissociative identity disorder (DID) system, alters may disappear for long periods of time. This doesn't mean they're dead, as DID alters cannot die. Rather, DID alters are just dormant.

The signs of DID may vary, but they include a change between two or more separate personalities. Symptoms include: Experiencing two or more separate personalities, each with their own self-identity and perceptions. A notable change in a person's sense of self.

Can you have DID without amnesia? ›

Some people with OSDD have two or more distinct personality states, or alters, but don't experience any gaps in memory or amnesia, a necessary symptom for a DID diagnosis.

There are many different types of alters in dissociative identity disorder (DID), including fictional introjects (Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder Alters). Fictional introjects, also called fictives, are alters that are based off of fictional people or characters.

Summary. There are a variety of triggers that can cause switching between alters, or identities, in people with dissociative identity disorder. These can include stress, memories, strong emotions, senses, alcohol and substance use, special events, or specific situations. In some cases, the triggers are not known.

Alters in DID commonly take on different roles and have different purposes within the system. For those with DID, having alters feels like having different people for each role; one can be a student, another a lover, and another a caretaker for the children.

Other brain imaging studies involving people with DID show smaller brain volume in the hippocampus (an area involved in memory and learning), as well as in the amygdala (an area involved in emotional and fear response).

The four dissociative disorders are: Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Frey, 2001; Spiegel & Cardeña, 1991).

Generally, in scholarly writing, with its emphasis on precision and clarity, the active voice is preferred.

Research impact has many definitions. Broadly, it is all the diverse ways that research benefits individuals, organisations and nations through increasing effectiveness of public services and policy, improving quality of life and health, or economic benefits.

Passive Influence of Alters

Examples of passive influences: Hearing a child's voice - when no child is visible. Speech insertion - saying things you don't remember saying, or didn't intend to say. Thought insertion * - strong thoughts seem to come out of nowhere and don't feel like yours.

What is passive social influence? ›

Drinking and Social Influence Processes

These drinking norms represent passive influences on behavior because they do not directly exert pressure on a person to behave accordingly, but rather consist of beliefs or observations a person acquires through social exposure regarding typical or approved behavior.

Passive sentences can get you into trouble in academic writing because they can be vague about who is responsible for the action: Both Othello and Iago desire Desdemona. She is courted.

Scientific writing often uses passive voice expressions¾'was performed', 'were observed', 'was achieved'¾to remove the actor from the action and consequently create a more objective tone. In this way, passive voice allows the writer to create distance between themselves and what they are writing about.

The three main factors that influence what research method a sociologist will use are Practicality, Ethics and Theory.

Research empowers us with knowledge

We get to know the way of nature, and how our actions affect it. We gain a deeper understanding of people, and why they do the things they do. Best of all, we get to enrich our lives with the latest knowledge of health, nutrition, technology, and business, among others.

For example: giving evidence to a select committee, working with a business or contributing to an exhibition in a museum is not impact. It would become impact if the people or organisation involved somehow do, experience or understand differently as a result of their interaction with the research.

Some indicators that a switch may be about to occur include the following: feeling "spacey", depersonalized, or derealized; blurred vision; feeling distanced or slowed down; feeling an alter's presence; or feeling like time is beginning to jump (indicating minor episodes of time loss).

Dissociative disorders usually develop as a way to cope with trauma. The disorders most often form in children subjected to long-term physical, sexual or emotional abuse or, less often, a home environment that's frightening or highly unpredictable.

Passive behavior includes violating y our own rights through inaction or by failing to express your thoughts, feelings, or desires. Example: “We can do whatever you want. Your ideas are probably better than mine.” Aggressive Behavior is when someone stands up for their own rights without regard for others.

What are 3 things which can influence a person to act too passively? ›

Passive Behavior involves saying nothing in a response, keeping feelings to yourself, hiding feelings from others, and perhaps even hiding your feelings from yourself. Passive behavior is often dishonest and involves letting other people violate your personal right to be treated with respect and dignity.