ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315808635/d072e771-52a2-41e8-9ef0-430f27b9a843/content/ch7_page147_01_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>Dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder) is the most chronic, complex, and disabling of the dissociative disorders (Putnam, 1989; Ross, 1997). It is usually linked to severe childhood trauma, which can involve any combination of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; neglect; loss of primary caretakers; and family violence and chaos. On the planet as a whole, the burden of chronic childhood trauma consists mainly of war, famine, disease, poverty, natural disasters, and cultural disintegration. In North America, these forms of suffering are less common than they are in other parts of the world, so mental health professionals here tend to focus on intrafamilial trauma. I favor a broad definition of trauma, one that includes suffering caused by the failure of parents to bond, connect with, and nurture their children. Errors of omission by the parents can be as harmful and painful as errors of commission—the active acts of abuse we usually think of as “trauma.”
