Dissociative identity disorder (DID) has a long history in the medical literature and has also drawn debate and controversy about its existence and nature.

DID has a complex aetiology associated with relational trauma (especially in attachment relationships) during a defined developmental window along with various cognitive and social facilitators, that may include the capacity for hypnotisability or absorption. The phenomenology of DID is equally complex, differentially involving the existence of self-states (dissociative identities) with their own first-person perspective and evidence of amnesia, which may be evident between identities. Yet, DID is also characterised by depersonalisation, derealisation, voice hearing, affect dysregulation and high levels of shame, among other symptoms and features.

This presentation will provide a short overview of DID’s history, aetiology, phenomenology and the some of the historical and current controversies associated with it.

Speaker biography

Martin Dorahy, PhD, DClinPsych, is a clinical psychologist and professor in the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

He has a clinical, research and theoretical interest in complex trauma, dissociative disorders and self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame). He has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and co-edited six books in the area of psychotraumatology, including most recently, Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorder: Past, Present, Future, 2^nd Ed (with Steve Gold and John O’Neil; 2023) and Contemporary Perspectives on the Seduction Theory and Psychotherapy: Revisiting Masson’s ‘The Assault on Truth’ (with Warwick Middleton).

He is a member of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists, New Zealand Psychological Society, and the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. He is a Fellow and Past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). He maintains a clinical practice, focused primarily on the adult sequelae of childhood relational trauma. He enjoys snow skiing and mountain biking.

No registration needed. Please contact devin.terhune@kcl.ac.uk if you have any questions.