The New York Times Magazine (1/30, Jones) interviewed “more than two dozen people who have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder along with nearly 20 experts.” DID has been “included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” since 1994. It is considered “one of the most controversial diagnoses in psychiatry. For decades, some critics have argued that it is extremely rare, or that it doesn’t exist at all.” Despite skepticism, “the field of psychiatry has never had more robust scientific and clinical data about the disorder – including the ways it defies decades-old stereotypes. There are now multiple validated assessment tools for dissociative disorders, including D.I.D., as well as neuroimaging studies that show how severe dissociation manifests in the brain.” In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, “neuroscientists now have more clues about how severe dissociation appears in the brain.”
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— The New York Times (requires login and subscription)