Dr. Brewerton, an expert in the treatment of those with both dissociative personality disorder (formally known as multiple personality disorder, and anorexia and bulimia delivered a seminar on how to best help these clients heal. He also gave some He gave some really staggering statistics to set the context.
The Journal Neurosciences reported that every 9 minutes child services provider finds evidence for child abuse.
1 in 53 boys assaulted by an adult.
Only 7% are strangers so 93% of the perpetrators are known by the abused person.
The earlier the abuse occurs the more likely dissociation will occur – Identity disorders and somatic occurrences.
Depression including suicidality and mood swings and dissociative amnesia was found in these patients.
Putnum reported back in 1976 that anorexia and bulimia are very common symptoms in these 1st 100 cases of multiple personality disordered people with which he worked.
There have also been high levels of dissociations in those with bulimia and eating disorder pathology. In Europe as well.
Suicidality and self-mutilation are done during dissociation.
Regarding the Covert Multiple Personality Disorders – the effectiveness of treatment is far from desired.
Psychopathology due to multiple personality disorder – 1990
Jim Locke has found that during his family-based treatment in those with anorexia, 75% of them had multiple personality disorders associated with binge/purge, restriction, and sexual promiscuity.
In a 1993 paper Andre Levin et al. paper they had found that little research had been done in children with multiple personality disorders and eating disorders.
These papers were written shortly before Dr. Brewerton worked with Sylvia, his very first patient with Multiple Personality Disorder.
The 3rd Wave of Women’s Study found that bulimia patients had amnesia of traumatic events. Binging and purging patients had much more amnesia than others.
The earlier the age the more likely the patient is to have Dissociative disorders. This is because the dissociation facilitates numbing with eating disorders -Bruer & Freud made this observation in one of their papers a long time ago.
2021- Harvard had noted that those being treated at McClain Hospital had distorted body perceptions in women with multiple personality disorder (now known as a dissociative personality disorder).
A dissociative personality disorder is a psychobiological disorder associated with childhood abuse. The elevated idea of a heavy body with the
distorted body perceptions elevated came from the abuse that these patients experienced leading to their distorted cognition which needs to be treated.
Because we now understand that the abusive treatment that these patients experienced caused these psychological issues an Integrated approach to their treatment is necessary. This means that the traumas from the abuse need to be addressed for true healing to occur. This is something that I have realized through the work that I have done with my many eating-disordered clients. The root cause of their problem was indeed the traumas that they endured that led to all the other symptoms that were presenting.
Along with the traumas needing to be addressed, the person also needs to deal with healing their inner child, do the forgiveness work toward those who harmed the patient as well as teaching them healthy emotional boundaries. It is a multipronged approach that I take with all my eating-disordered clients. So, far I have not had any eating disordered clients that presented with multiple personality disorders.
The more interesting aspect of dealing with patients with multiple personality disorders is that each personality serves a specific purpose in the patients’
identity, so it is very important to allow each to know that they will be present with the integration into the whole.
Bethany Fran of the University of Maryland Towson in Harvard Review noted that multiple personality disorder (DID) has been described for 100s of years as being diagnosed in clinical systems in and out-patient programs as well as community centers and has been found in populations all over the world with the exception being Antarctica.
Going forward, we need to understand that in any patient that demonstrates both eating disorders and dissociative personality disorder that the underlying way to healing has got to include the work of healing the traumas that these patients have endured along with the sensitivity of the place each of the personalities takes in helping these patients to cope. Integration can indeed be achieved but only by letting each of the personalities know that they will still be serving their purpose in the operation of the patient.
The other really important piece of information shared was that it was the psychiatrists who misdiagnosed or were unwilling to diagnose their patients with dissociative personality disorder, maybe because many of them fail to recognize it as a real diagnosis. So, the level of degrees really does not matter in these cases. It is much more about the understanding of the various psychiatric symptoms and how to appropriately diagnose a person first. Second, is the sensitivity and willingness to treat the whole person going back to the abuse history to achieve true lasting healing for the patient.
To see the documentary of Sylvia’s treatment go to:
