Dissociative Identity Disorder: Treatment and Management

by Hassaan Tohid

Experiencing Inside or Outside Although mental intrusions from within (e.g., interference of alternate personality states) may have unlimited capacities to escape reality as an activity of the inner world, they are limited in agency. This is due to the partial control still maintained by the host and other personality states of the internal system. The opposite is valid for externally experienced mental content unless a culture or subculture enables liberty to some of these deviations from normative. An example of this might be an experience of possession by shared external entities that operate like “currencies,” making exchange possible; i.e., in contrast to private alternate personality states, they can move from one person to another.