Multiple personality disorder — now known in modern psychological lingo as dissociative identity disorder (DID) in the DSM-IV — is a fairly uncommon mental health concern. But it remains an intriguing one because of its nature: The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states. Each of these identities or personality states has its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self, and take alternating control of the person’s behavior.
Sybil is one of the most popularly known individuals who had multiple personality disorder, largely because of a book published in the 1970s that detailed her experience and that of her psychiatrist in trying to help treat her.
Now Debbie Nathan, writing in her new book, Sybil Exposed, suggests that the core diagnosis for Sybil — of multiple personality disorder — was made up by the patient to keep in the good graces of her psychiatrist.
NPR has the story, and describes how Shirley Mason — Sybil’s real name — came to have multiple personality disorder:
Shirley Mason, the real Sybil, grew up in the Midwest in a strict Seventh-day Adventist family. As a young woman she was emotionally unstable, and she decided to seek psychiatric help. Mason became unusually attached to her psychiatrist, Dr. Connie Wilbur, and she knew that Wilbur had a special interest in multiple personality disorder.
“Shirley feels after a short time, that she is not really getting the attention she needs from Dr. Wilbur,†Nathan explains. “One day, she walks into Dr. Wilbur’s office and she says, ‘I’m not Shirley. I’m Peggy.’ … And she says this in a childish voice. … Shirley started acting like she had a lot of people inside her.”
So the implication by the book’s author, Debbie Nathan, is that ‘Sybil’ made up her diagnosis in order to keep the attention of her psychiatrist, Dr. Wilbur, and to gain the emotional rewards from such attention. Shirley Mason wouldn’t be the first patient to ever want increased attention from their therapist.
An interesting hypothesis. But is it true?
Read in Full:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/10/24/was-sybil-faking-multiple-personalities/
Related Article
MindHacks “A Case of Simulated Fragmentation”:
http://mindhacks.com/2011/10/15/a-case-of-simulated-fragmentation/
Lorna Wing MD FRCPsych, the English psychiatrist, physician and one of the founding members of The National Autistic Society recently won the Outstanding Individual Achievement Award at The Charity Times Awards.
This award is given to someone who has demonstrated dedication, professionalism and integrity throughout their career, and who has had an identifiably profound effect on the sector through their work and/or management.
Lorna was recognised on behalf of people affected by autism, including helping to establish the concept of a spectrum of autistic conditions, and founding the NAS.
On awarding Lorna the Outstanding Individual Achievement Award, the Charity Times judges stated:
A clear contribution to the work of those with autism and helping society to understand autism over many decades.
Lorna is one of the world’s leading experts in autism. She became involved in researching the condition after her daughter was diagnosed in the 1950s, when autism was still a decidedly unheard of and misunderstood condition.
In 1962 Lorna founded The National Autistic Society with a group of other parents. Today the NAS is the UK’s leading charity for people affected by autism, with over 20,000 members and more than 100 branches. Every year we provide information, advice and specialist services to 100,000 people living with autism across the UK.
In 1991, Lorna set up the NAS Lorna Wing Centre for Autism, which was the first centre in the country to provide a complete diagnostic, assessment and advice service for children, adolescents and adults with social and communication disorders throughout the UK. Despite now being in her 80s and retired, Lorna continues to work as a consultant at the Centre.
Lorna’s numerous published works have challenged and changed in the field of autism.
Many congratualtions to Lorna on receiving the outstanding achievement award.
Source:
Unusual, psychotic-like symptoms, such as hearing voices, are not as rare among the general population as you might think. For example, it’s estimated that ten per cent of us hear voices that aren’t there, with only a small minority of hearers likely to ever receive a clinical diagnosis. According to a new study, this means that the factors that cause psychotic-like symptoms are likely different from those that lead to a diagnosis of pathological psychosis. Charles Heriot-Maitland and his colleagues argue that this distinction has been missed by the majority of past studies that hunted the causes of psychosis by focusing only on patients, neglecting those who live happily with their psychotic-like experiences.
To make a start rectifying this situation, Heriot-Maitland’s team interviewed six patients with psychosis (recruited via psychosis teams in SE England) and six “healthy” non-patients, who reported similar unusual experiences (recruited via UK networks involved with spiritual or psychic phenomena). Across both groups, these experiences included: receiving visions from God, hearing voices, and feeling that their body had been taken over. Based on their symptoms alone, you couldn’t tell which group a participant belonged to – clinical or non-clinical. The researchers asked all the participants open-ended questions about the circumstances that led to the onset of their unusual experiences, how they felt about them, and how their friends, relatives and other people had responded.
Using a qualitative method called Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the researchers looked for emerging themes in the participants’ answers. Both similarities and differences emerged. In both groups, their unusual psychotic experiences had started after a period of negative emotion, most often accompanied by feelings of isolation and deep contemplation about the meaning of life. However, the groups differed in how they responded to and perceived their odd experiences. Members of the non-clinical group had been more aware of non-medical interpretations of their symptoms; they viewed them as transient and desirable; and people close to them shared this non-pathologising perspective. By contrast, the patients encountered invalidating, medical interpretations of their experiences and were themselves less able to accept their experiences and to incorporate them into their personal and social worlds.
Read More …
As soldiers return home from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, America must cope with the toll that war takes on mental health. But the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is becoming increasingly expensive, and promises to escalate as yet another generation of veterans tries to heal its psychological wounds.
New hope for preventing the development of PTSD has been uncovered by Prof. Joseph Zohar of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center, in collaboration with Prof. Hagit Cohen from Ben-Gurion University – and the key is a single dose of a common medication.
When a person suffers trauma, the body naturally increases its secretion of cortisone. Taking this natural phenomenon into account, Prof. Zohar set out to discover what a single extra dose of cortisone could do, when administered up to six hours after test subjects experienced a traumatizing event. The results, which will be published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology in October 2011, indicate that the likelihood that the patient will later develop PTSD is reduced by 60 percent.
Opening the window of opportunity
In most psychiatric conditions, it is impossible to establish a precise point of time at which the disorder manifested, Prof. Zohar says. But PTSD is unique in that is has an easily established timeline, beginning from the moment a patient experiences trauma. This makes PTSD eligible for treatment in the “golden hours” – a medical term that defines the precious few hours in which treatment can be most beneficial following a trauma, heart attack, stroke, or medical event. Receiving treatment in this window of opportunity can be critical.
Read in Full:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/235513.php
Tom Jackman
Published on October 22, 2011
Special to The Telegram
Tom Jackman showed up for an interview with The Telegram toting a case full of books, movies, speeches and pamphlets about Asperger syndrome.
Although he often speaks about his experiences living with the autism spectrum disorder at conferences, the 34-year-old is more comfortable corresponding with people by email than face-to-face.
People with Asperger syndrome often find it difficult to interact with others. They pay particular attention to detail, thrive on routine and repetitious tasks and aren’t big fans of change.
“If somebody is going to move the furniture around the room, they should tell me on Monday if they’re going to do it on Wednesday so I don’t just walk into the room on Wednesday and see it all changed around,†Jackman explained.
When speaking at conferences, Jackman uses humour to break the ice.
At a Targa Newfoundland event on Sept. 17, he quipped: “Whose idea was it, anyway, to ask the socially awkward Asperger’s person to give a speech. … I am glad I can read this to you and not have to make eye contact, since making eye contact is something Asperger’s people find difficult to do.â€
Jackman is on the Autism Society’s Newfoundland and Labrador board of directors and chairs an Autism Society of Canada advisory committee.
He was in Winnipeg this month to speak at a conference hosted by Asperger Manitoba Inc.
“I am glad I got the call up from St. John’s to Winnipeg. I am sure that many of the St. John’s Ice Caps AHL players would love such a call up to Winnipeg this winter,†he said in his speech.
In addition to the jokes, Jackman always gets his serious message across. People should look at Asperger syndrome as a difference rather than a disability, he says.
“By not letting it hold me back too much, I have developed into a talented and unique individual,†he told his Winnipeg audience.
Meeting the Australian-born psychologist Tony Attwood was the highlight of his trip to Winnipeg. Attwood is author of “The Complete Guide to Asperger Syndrome†— which Jackman had Attwood sign.
While he’s not comfortable in unfamiliar situations, Jackman says there are occasions when he’ll “come out of his comfort zone.â€
That happened during his trip to Winnipeg.
Travelling alone, he became anxious waiting for his flight to take off and decided to show one of his books to a flight attendant.
“Then, when I was getting off, she asked me if I knew which gate I had to go to.â€
Having someone check on him from time to time helps him feel less stressed, he said.
“I like to be social and I like to make connections. It’s just hard to make friendships and relationships.â€
Jackman volunteers with the annual Targa motorsport event and speaks intently and passionately about his work.
“I program in all the car numbers and that goes onto the clock. … I don’t have to communicate a lot and if something goes wrong, they’ll just tell me to stop putting in numbers.â€
Jackman also volunteers with Rogers Television and will be behind the camera at the Ice Caps hockey games at Mile One Centre.
Read in Full:
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2011-10-22/article-2784182/Different-not-disabled/1
The Special Learner
By TERESITA DE MESA
October 24, 2011, 4:28am
Top scientists team up to unravel mystery of Williams syndrome
Missing
By: ,
Published: October 27, 2011
Updated: October 27, 2011 – 7:17 AM
Authorities in Hanover county continued to search without success overnight for 9-year-old Robert Wood Jr., an autistic boy who disappeared Sunday while on a walk with relatives.
The Hanover Sheriff’s Office is asking for more volunteers today and especially wants those who already have been registered and trained to return. People who want to volunteer are asked to arrive at 9 a.m. at Kings Dominion dressed in appropriate clothing for a hike in dense woods. A valid identification is also required.
(This has been a breaking news update. Stay with TimesDispatch.com for updates on this and other news events.)
6:33 a.m.
Johnny Mitchell got down on his knees, took off his cowboy hat and crawled under a backyard deck in hopes of answering the region’s prayers.
“I’ve got to watch out for nails,” Mitchell said as he squirmed into the dimly lit space.
Mitchell was one of 940 volunteers who searched Wednesday for 9-year-old Robert Wood Jr., an autistic boy from Caroline County who disappeared Sunday afternoon in a wooded park in north-central Hanover County.
As many as 200 of them also had volunteered Tuesday, and the total over two days reached about 1,600. Hundreds of other people are helping with logistics for the search.
Mitchell’s group, all wearing bright reflective vests, checked the north side of Verdon Road, just southeast of where the child disappeared. The search was one of 74 search missions completed Wednesday, some of them covering the same ground twice.
Mitchell, 58, knows the area — he had hunted there, and relatives own property there — so he thought he could add something extra to the search.
There was nothing under the deck.
“That little boy has gotten to me,” said Mitchell, striding back to his group and carrying a stick to beat back briars. “He’s somebody’s child.”
Robert, who doesn’t speak, disappeared during a walk with family in North Anna Battlefield Park. The search — by land, air and water, with people, dogs and horses — has continued night and day since then.
The temperature dropped into the 40s each night from Sunday to Wednesday.
On Sunday, bloodhounds “alerted” on Robert’s scent near the spot he disappeared, but the trail ended at the North Anna River, said Hanover sheriff’s Capt. Michael Trice. Other dogs have since picked up the same scent, but it has also ended near the river.
“That tells us he may have originally gone to the river,” Trice said.
He said dive teams and kayakers have searched upriver from the site where Robert was last seen and downriver to U.S. 1, more than a mile to the east. He said the river’s water level had been lowered to make searching easier.
Asked the odds that Robert is still alive, Trice said the question isn’t relevant at this point. “We are going to continue this until we find him. … We’re operating under the assumption that Robert needs our help.”
He said a sheriff’s team has been assigned to stay with the boy’s family around the clock, adding that “they’re doing as expected.” The family has asked that the boy be referred to as Robert, rather than Robbie, officials said.
Volunteers began showing up Wednesday before daybreak, and the first teams headed into the woods about 8 a.m.
The Sheriff’s Office is asking for more volunteers today and especially wants those who already have been registered and trained to return. People who want to volunteer are asked to arrive at 9 a.m. at Kings Dominion dressed in appropriate clothing for a hike in dense woods. A valid identification is also required.
On Wednesday, the searchers tackled a 22-square-mile area north and south of Verdon Road, Trice said. Robert disappeared in the park north of the rural road.
Searchers hiked for miles through thick, swampy woods with no trails, some of them carrying treats or toys for Robert in their pockets.
About 50 searchers were too tired to finish Tuesday, Trice said. About six were so fatigued they required medical treatment. He said Wednesday one person was treated for a sprained knee.
The volunteers included people taking vacation days, retirees and at least one man who just got laid off.
“Instead of looking for a job, I thought it was time to help,” said Andy Stevens, 31, of Chesterfield County.
Waiting in a long line to be processed as a volunteer, 79-year-old retiree Tommy Haymans of Henrico County said he and his wife are caring for three adult, mentally disabled sons.
“I like to think,” Haymans said, “that if anything happened to them, I’d get a following like this to look for them.”
Source:
UPDATE:Â Â Robert Wood Jnr., Missing Autistic Boy, Found Alive in Va.
Related Articles
“Mute autistic boy missing in Virginia”:
http://a.abcnews.com/US/search-continues-robert-woods-jr-missing-mute-autistic/story?id=14827692
“Fears for Missing Autistic Boy”:
http://crimesceneusa.blogspot.com/2011/10/fears-grow-for-missing-autistic-boy.html
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