ABSTRACT
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a natural process gone awry. In dissociation, psychological functions that normally act in concert become segregated, yielding a “disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior” (APA 2013, 291). Thus characterized, dissociation is neither maladaptive nor unhealthy. Indeed, it plays an important role in everyday functioning, permitting us to segment our targets of conscious awareness and so to perform one task while
attending to another. Anyone who has driven some distance while deep in thought, only to arrive at his destination with no memories of the journey, has dissociated. Similarly, anyone whose thoughts have been sidetracked while reading a book, and then realized that they have “read” several pages without registering them, has also had a dissociative episode.
