Kathy Steele: Neurobiology of DID, on Science Friday

Kathy Steele, cocreator of the Structural Dissociation Theory, patiently defends the existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder to Ira Flatow and Numan Gharaibeh (a clueless psychiatrist) on NPR's Science Friday. Worth a listen: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200911133 

I've run into this blindness before, mostly in analytically trained psychiatrists, despite all evidence.

Comments

[Krista]

This was an informative broadcast. Thank you for bringing to our attention. Enjoy your blog very much.

[Robin Shapiro]

Thanks!

[Frank B. Finkelstein, M.D. - Psychiatrist]

Careful what you call clueless. Cluelessness exists too in the mindless application of good science, sometimes controversial, and reductionist. This can lead to going from the laboratory to the clinical with hypotheses of potential interest. These hypotheses, taken by some as proved and true, end up promulgated, without deep thought, or valid testing. The end result are
at best oversimplied, at worst junk science, sold to an unsuspecting public, by wrong headed 'therapists' - also clueless.

[Robin Shapiro]

Hi Frank,

If you listen to the broadcast, you would notice that Gharaibeh is blinded by ideology from seeing clearly present phenomena. Ive worked with DID who were mistreated by well-meaning, blind therapist, and who lost years of potential healing misdiagnosed and trying fit into square holes.

Respectfully,

Robin 

[cialis online]

What careers can you pursue with a major in neurobiology?
I'm currently a social sciences major but I am planning to switch to neurobiology.

[Marc]

Most clinical and psychoanalytic theories can have what I call a "boomerang effect".This effect can reverberate from the mind of some professionals creating a potential devastating and misleading effect on those whom have the misfortune to be treated by them.Those professionals ,may have been themselves, children whom suffered from a very traumatic childhood and therefore show some dissociation and accentuated narcissistic and structural personality disorders.It is essentially a demonstration of their poor self esteem masked behind an influential position in the medical field.They should not be allowed to be in an analytical environment.When knowledge becomes a smoke screen for a lack of personal resolvability you need to get to the bottom of your problematics before you could even conceptualize yourself in a dyadic therapeutic situation...

[April Fletcher]

The suspicion regarding DID is one that I heartily shared and contributed to as a graduate level instructor, trainer for child protection workers and therapist. I have been nothing short of stunned in the past two years to find all too much validity in the concept of dissociation and a dissociative continuum as a means to cope with trauma. This recognition of dissociation as a real phenomena that offers little by way of secondary gain for clinician or client is the result of difficult but undeniable concerns I have witnessed professionally and personally. Not very scientific, but empirically, simply true.