ABSTRACT
Discrete Behavioral States Theory (DBST) is a transtheoretical, translational theory of human consciousness. DBST elucidates human experience across myriad normal and pathological domains. This chapter illuminates the importance of DBST for understanding human development, mind/brain/body relationships, and psychopathology. DBST synthesizes theoretical and clinical conceptualization of psychological trauma, dissociation, and posttraumatic and dissociative disorders. We discuss basic aspects of DBST and the study of human states of being (SoB), particularly the importance of normal developmental attunement and attachment processes, and the relevance of studies of infant behavioral states for the study of dissociative disorders (DD), especially dissociative identity disorder (DID). We locate the DD among other “state-change” disorders, like mood disorders, and view commonalities including those around state-switching/shifting phenomena. DBST subsumes other theories of dissociation, like structural dissociation theory or the hypnotic theory, as these are all based on discrete behavioral states. We discuss a developmentally informed model of DID as a posttraumatic developmental disorder involving extreme traumatic states and attachment pathology interfering with development of a continuous sense of self across states and contexts. We review findings from neurobiology studies supporting conceptualizing DID as characterized by the “state of multiple simultaneous, overlapping states.”
