title: Toward a psychoanalytic understanding of multiple personality disorder.
abstract: The author suggests a developmental psychoanalytic frame from which to understand the clinical phenomenology of multiple personality disorder (MPD). Annihilation anxiety and fears of nonbeing are understood as central; they are seen as resulting from actual early traumatic impingements at key developmental periods. Alter "personalities" are conceptualized as functional delusional processes that serve to maintain self-cohesion. The alters are brought about through the subject's lack of capacity for illusion. Some therapeutic implications regarding a psychoanalytic stance are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Trauma Clinic, Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Reis
mesh_terms: D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D009105:Dissociative Identity Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory