Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Page Three
Contrary to confusing media statements like this, schizophrenia and DID are very distinct disorders with unique symptoms and different treatments. Schizophrenia is primarily a thought disorder in which people experience a break with reality. It is characterized by delusions or hallucinations (i.e., hearing voices or seeing things that are not there). These delusions and hallucinations are often paranoid or grandiose in nature, meaning that a schizophrenic man might believe that he is the Messiah and there is a conspiracy to kill him. In contrast, DID is characterized not by a single delusional theme, but by the presence of multiple personality states within one individual.
In addition to this confusion regarding DID in popular culture, DID can be mystifying even to trained counselors. It is not uncommon among people who suffer from DID to have been previously misdiagnosed with another psychiatric disorder. In many cases, a DID patient will be treated for months (or even years) before the patient feels safe enough to reveal the DID symptoms to the counselor.
Spiritual Issues
According to the Bible, we are more than simply physical and emotional beings. We are also spiritual beings with a capacity to relate to God. And we live in a fallen, sinful world in which problems are passed from generation to generation. None of us are free from some physical or emotional consequences of sin, and DID sufferers have much more than their share. The horribly sinful abuse by parents or others is the main contributing cause of DID.
Severe mental illnesses like DID can wreck havoc with a person's spiritual life, and spiritual factors nearly always play some role in causing the various emotional and mental disorders. It is common for DID clients to feel alienated from God, or angry with Him because they believe God abandoned them by not stopping the abusive or traumatic experiences. Some believe they are so damaged that God can never want them. Many times this produces intense conflicts among the client alters that identify themselves as Christian and those that do not.
Because DID seems so bizarre and unusual, and because one or more of the alters may be furious with God, some people conclude that DID is directly caused by demon possession. While Satan is ultimately the cause of all evil in our world, including fractured and abusive families, that does not mean that problems like DID are directly caused by demon possession or demon activity. In DID, the most likely explanation for trance states, amnesia, hearing voices, subjective feelings about the presence of other identities, and different voices or handwriting styles is early childhood trauma.
 While Satan is ultimately the cause of all
evil in our world, including fractured and
abusive families, that does not mean that
problems like DID are directly caused by
demon possession or demon activity.
Although the New Testament offers several descriptions of the effect of demons on people, including instances when multiple demons influence a person, there are no biblical examples of demon possession creating multiple personalities. Further evidence that DID is not directly caused by demon possession is the fact that many individuals suffering from DID are cured by psychotherapy (including psychotherapy with non Christian therapists). If DID were caused by demon possession, it could not be cured without supernatural intervention.
How then are Christians to think about the role of spiritual factors in DID? There are two extreme and inadequate perspectives. First, is the inclination to minimize spiritual factors and to view everything as strictly psychological. God has created us as spiritual beings, and the Bible tells us that Satan is actively trying to distort God's creation. Satan is described as a tempter and a deceiver and the prince of darkness. He does everything in his power to see that Christians do not experience the life of wholeness that God desires for us. There are always spiritual forces at work around us despite our inability to fully perceive them. This should call us to a posture of prayer, humility, and reliance upon God as we seek to understand and help those with life difficulties.
The second inadequate perspective in understanding dissociation and other mental disorders is to see demons as the direct cause of the illness. Great harm has been done to some DID patients when they were told that part of their personality is evil and alien to them and needs to be exorcised. For example, because some alters are antagonistic toward God and spiritual things, some assume this alter is actually a demon. But that need not be the case. When angry emotions are not allowed safe expression as a person is growing up, this angry, rebellious side of the personality can be split off into an alter. When this happens, the alter ends up hating God or having a violent reaction to the name of Christ. This does not mean the alter is a demon.
Most of us become disillusioned with God at times, as illustrated by several of King David's angry psalms that are now an integral part of our Old Testament, and yet we do not assume that our anger toward God is caused by a demon. Most of us experience both a loving desire for relationship with God and, at times, rebellious, resentful feelings. For those with DID, this disparity is intolerable, and so the struggles and questions may become personified into specific alters. Thus, the person with DID experiences two different selves—one that loves God and by all outward experiences appears to be a fine Christian, and another who resents God and appears to be radically ungodly. If a counselor labels one of these personalities as demonic, it can further injure the patient and work against the patient facing his or her angry feelings and resolving and integrating those into his life in a realistic way.
A biblically-based psychological understanding of DID leads us to conclude that both spiritual and emotional factors are involved in the problem, as is the case with most problems of living, and that demonic activity is not the direct cause of DID.
Treatment
The classic historical treatment for DID has been hypnosis with the goal of getting in touch with all the alter personalities. Some success has been found for hypnosis as a treatment method in the few documented cases in which hypnosis was used. However, because of the dissociative nature of hypnosis itself, hypnosis as a treatment method may actually lead to an increase in dissociation and produce even more alter personalities. Hypnosis, therefore, is not the best treatment choice for DID. Medication alone, and group psychotherapy are also not suggested for individuals with DID.
 Continued on Page Four
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