by Trish Fotheringham
Learn About Dissociation
- Why Does Dissociation Matter?
- What is Dissociation?
- What can be Dissociated?
- How Needs, Communication and Beliefs Impact Dissociation
- The Spectrum of Dissociative Effects
- What is Dissociative Identity?
- Healthy Perspectives and Approaches
- Dissociation-related Definitions
Looking For Support?
Dissociation-related Definitions
My goal is promoting understanding of Dissociation.
At this point though, much of what I write and speak about is still unknown or misunderstood by most people.
So here are some general definitions of pertinent dissociation-related words and concepts to familiarize yourselves with and become accustomed to hearing about and using.
The material in these Definitions is not meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy. Some of this information may trigger distressing responses, so please practice self-care and use caution and common sense while reading this material.
Many of these Definitions are quoted verbatim from, or were adapted with permission from the FAQs pages at NATRCoalition.org/faq/ and ra-info.org/.
Others were quoted or adapted as noted.
categories
- Memory related definitions
(including types of memory, memory processes, traumatic memory) - Trauma and Dissociation related definitions
- Extreme abuse definitions
Memory
Memory in humans is a complex function that involves both the brain and the physical body. The Left and Right hemispheres of the brain each play their own role, as do the Conscious and Unconscious levels of memory. There are also different Types of Memory, including Sensory, Short-term and Long-term, and sub-types Procedural, Semantic, Episodic, Cumulative, and Muscle Memory.
Each aspect of memory interconnects with the others in some manner. Generally, memories start out conscious and short-term, then progressively shift to unconscious and long-term, as happens when a child learns to walk. The different Types of Memory are usually involved too. For example, learning to walk involves the how to procedures of limb movements, balance, etc, plus the semantics of the terrain being walked on, the episodic sequence of movements required, and the cumulative memory that shifts it to the mostly unconscious and automatic Muscle Memory level.
When dissociated, traumatic memories are not stored in the same way as “ordinary” memories. People normally remember an event in a holistic way that includes sights, sounds, feelings, and meaning. When dissociation occurs as a result of trauma, different parts of the memory are stored separately, not as a congruent whole. One or more aspects of the experience can therefore be missing in conscious memories of the traumatic event. However, traumatic memories are unconsciously stored in a manner which keeps them clear and intact as if locked in a vacuum that prevents aging or disintegration of integrity. This means that the details of individual memories are available for recall and interpretation, even those of preverbal experiences, since the emotional and physical “senses” and the “visuals and soundtrack” remain complete and whole in a manner which allows one to see, hear and feel what happened during the traumatic event, even decades later.
Types of Memory
There are three main Types or Stages of Memory: Sensory, Short-term (working), and Long-term. Before a memory can get to Long-term storage, the 3 stages of memory formation must take place.
Sensory Memory
A memory starts out as 1 second of Sensory perception (visual, aural/audio, touch, and/or other stimuli or aspects of experience, including smell, taste, thoughts and emotions.)
Short-term Memory
Paying attention to the sensory perception moves the memory for about 1 minute into the Short-term/working stage where we store what we need to know in the immediate here and now.
Long-term Memory
Repeated exposure to, or rehearsal/repetition of, the perception or stimulus moves the memory from short-term to Long-term storage, where we store knowledge we may need for reference in the future.
Long-term Memory is divided into Unconscious Memory (implicit) and Conscious Memory (explicit), then further defined by the types of information stored.
Unconscious Memory
Unconscious Memory holds Procedural Memory, where we store skills and tasks – the physical body, motor, and “instinctive” Muscle Memory functions such as walking, laughing, how to use a knife and fork, or how to perform mechanical tasks, and the automatic reactions and behaviours we call “auto-pilot”.
Conscious Memory
Conscious Memory holds Declarative Memory, where we store facts and events.
Declarative Memory has 2 sub-types: Semantic Memory stores the facts and concepts that form the foundations for daily life. (= What is a computer?) Episodic Memory stores events and experiences in serial order and gives us the capacity to recall them. For example, how to use a computer.
Cumulative Memory refers to the buildup in long-term storage of experiences and knowledge that we draw upon for automatic reactions, decision-making, and the creation of new learning.
Memory Processes
Memory is the ability to encode, store and retrieve information. There are 4 stages in the processing of memories.
Encoding is the input of perception and recording of stimuli that occurs when our attention moves information from sensory perception to short-term memory.
Consolidation is the temporary processing work that takes place in short-term memory as information is sifted and sorted into long-term memory.
Storage happens when the brain deems a memory significant enough to store. (This is why attention and studying are so important – they tell the brain “this is important information – remember it!”)
Recall/Retrieval is the recognition, interpretation, and reconstruction of information stored in Long-term memory. There are 2 types of information Retrieval: Recall, in which information is copied from unconscious to conscious memory, and Recognition, which happens when the information called up provides knowledge based on what has been stored previously.
Traumatic Memory
As I understand it, Traumatic experiences can cause detours at any of part of the Memory process because Dissociation can lock trauma memories away separately from the normal storage areas of the brain, so they end up hidden away in separate areas of Unconscious Memory, with out-of-the-ordinary connections and associations forged during the Encoding, Consolidation and Storage processes. I believe this is what creates the pristine storage found in Trauma memories that allows clear recall of details at a later time and enables the triggers and memory leakages of Flashbacks and PTSD.
It is through Cumulative and Muscle Memory that the most evident Dissociative Interferences occur. For example, when the sound of a car backfiring triggers a flashback to being in a war zone and the attendant survival responses and reactions kick into gear, it is Cumulative Memory and Muscle Memory joining forces and saying “that sounds like this previous sound” which triggers the previously learned/developed reactions and responses (in this case, seek cover and shoot), whether or not they are appropriate to the moment the trigger occurs, even if it only takes a fraction of a second to realize it’s only a car backfiring, you still get an adrenaline rush as if back in war. The degree and level of such reactions interconnects with the details and intensities of the Aspects of the original Experience involved.
Triggers and Cues
A trigger is a catalyst. An example of a trigger for a non-dissociative person could be the smell of apple pie “taking them back to grandma’s kitchen”. Triggers can be situations, smells, sounds, actions, words, or other prompts that bring a memory or feeling to consciousness, or that activate an internal program.
Sometimes, triggers are intentionally created by abusers to activate deliberately installed programs. Common methods used in this manner include hand signals and/or touching the person, “coded” telephone calls, gifts, letters or greeting cards, specific dates and/or events. Cues such as names, phrases, colors, lights, and sounds are also used to activate a dissociated alter. Intentionally created triggers and cues of this type are generally very subtle, often consisting of commonly occurring gestures, words or other symbols that do not stand out or seem unusual. This can make them highly challenging to note, evade, and move beyond.
The term “triggered” is used in a very broad sense to mean anything from getting upset when a friend, co-worker, or supervisor is rude or thoughtless, to having a flashback at the dentist, or following a command after seeing a hand signal. The word “cue” is usually used more narrowly and refers specifically to a trigger that activates a program.
Flashback
A flashback is a dissociated memory, or elements of a memory, returning to conscious awareness. It can include an entire, integrated experience, or fragments of an experience: a smell, a taste, a sound, an image, or an emotion. It can last a moment, or linger for weeks. Common examples include smelling alcohol or perfume when none is present, hearing a phrase over and over again in your head, feeling panic or dread for no logical reason, or seeing images, like snapshots or movies in the mind’s eye.
Flashbacks can be triggered by an experience similar to the one that was pushed out of consciousness. Experiencing flashbacks can be an indication that one feels stable and secure enough to deal with emotions and realities that couldn’t be safely processed previously. Flashbacks usually diminish in intensity and frequency over time. Flashbacks tend to lose their intensity when dissociated fragments have been assembled into a coherent, linear narrative, and the various threatening elements of the memory have been expressed and processed.This process is sometimes referred to as “integration,” as it serves to integrate the dissociated experience into conscious awareness, and is absorbed as part of the general understanding of one’s personal history and worldview.
Trauma and Dissociation
Trauma
Trauma is injury – physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. A traumatic event is the thing that causes the injury, such as a car accident or a verbal assault, being shot at during a war, catching a partner cheating, a critical situation that demands too many decisions at once, or being misused by a religious group.
Trauma occurs on a spectrum and to varying degrees. Any injury involves individual factors that determine whether or not an event is experienced and responded to as a trauma. A scraped knee may be minor physically, but the fall that caused it can be a traumatic emotional experience. Likewise, someone with a dangerous and demanding job may be subject to much physical injury yet experience none of it as traumatic.
Trauma activates the survival-based fight, flight, or freeze responses, speeding or slowing the heart, sending chemicals rushing to the brain to power emergency functions, and/or turn off, alter or adapt normal functions. This can enable quick thinking and/or actions, or halt them with shock. Trauma can also activate the survival mechanism of dissociation, and when extreme, can result in dissociative effects which initially serve a helpful purpose but may later cause difficulties or interfere with a person’s life, as in PTSD experienced by war vets.
Chronic Trauma
Chronic Trauma refers to repeated and ongoing trauma that traps a person into a perpetual “fight or flight” mode. At this survival level, the terror, confusion, pain and/or other effects of trauma build cumulatively, compounding and deepening with each successive trauma. For example, a resident of a war zone, a child with abusive parents, and a homeless person will each experience some form of chronic trauma simply as a result of their environment.
Post Traumatic Stress Response (PTSR)
(commonly called PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
(From the US Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs National Center for PTSD.)
“Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can occur following the experience or witnessing of a traumatic event. Most survivors of trauma return to normal given a little time. However, some people will have stress reactions that do not go away on their own, or may even get worse over time. These individuals may develop PTSD.
People with PTSD experience different kinds of symptoms. [T]here are also clear biological changes associated with PTSD. PTSD is complicated by the fact that people with PTSD often may develop additional disorders such as depression, substance abuse, problems of memory and cognition, and other problems of physical and mental health. These problems may lead to impairment of the person’s ability to function in social or family life, including occupational instability, marital problems and family problems.”
Some professionals and laypersons now refer to this condition as “PTSS,” post-traumatic stress syndrome, or even more accurately “PTSR,” post-traumatic stress response, because the term “disorder” is a misnomer in the sense that it’s a normal response to extreme stress.
Dissociation
”Dissociation” refers to the separation, or disconnection, of things (ideas, feelings, information, identity, or memories) that were originally, or usually are, connected.
Dissociation is a natural, built-in survival and coping mechanism that unconsciously and automatically mitigates unbearable pain or trauma.
Dissociation happens on a continuum, from mild distraction to total amnesia. The severity of trauma-induced dissociation depends upon the extremity and duration of the traumatic experience.
People normally remember an event in a holistic way that includes sights, sounds, feelings, and meaning. When dissociation occurs as a result of trauma, different parts of the memory are stored and recalled separately, not as a cohesive and congruent whole. For example, memories of a dissociated event might be devoid of meaning, sensations, behaviors or feelings because they were stored in a compartmentalized way.
Dissociative Identity – DID/DIR
“D.I.D. – Dissociative Identity Disorder ” is the psychiatric term for the extreme end of the natural survival function that people can default to when they are subjected to repeated unbearable trauma.
” D.I.R. – Dissociative Identity Response“ is a new, more accurately descriptive term now being used by survivors.
Dissociation is a natural response that protects a person’s mind, body and spirit. Dissociative Identity Response is a brilliant coping mechanism that is misnamed a disorder because when Dissociation has ceased to serve its helpful purpose and doesn’t get healed, it can cause all sorts of trouble in our lives.
In some people, dissociated memory and experience fragments are organized or arranged into discrete “personalities” or “identities” which can be experienced internally as having separate experiences and histories. Often personalities are so compartmentalized that they are not aware of each others existence. This is called an “amnesic barrier,” and is an extreme degree of dissociation. Over time, continued dissociation can become unhealthy and no longer serve the survival and coping function it originally served.
(From the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, 4th edition Text Revision), published by the American Psychological Association in 2000.
“(People) with DID report having severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during childhood. The reports of patients with DID are often validated by objective evidence. Physical evidence may include variations in physiological functions in different identity states, including differences in vision, levels of pain tolerance, symptoms of asthma, the response of blood glucose to insulin and sensitivity to allergens.”
Multiplicity
“Multiplicity” refers to the state of being psychologically dissociated.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) is the psychiatric term for the natural survival function people default to when they are subjected to repeated unbearable trauma. It was previously referred to as “Multiple Personality Disorder,” or “M.P.D.”
Dissociative Identity Response (D.I.R.) is the new, more accurately descriptive term many survivors have adopted.
Alter
An alter is one personality of a person with DIR. The personality who is “out” most of the time is often called the host personality and, sometimes, personalities that manifest less frequently are called alternative personalities. Some people have only one or two alters, others have hundreds or even thousands.
Some people with multiplicity experience each alter as a separate person. Others experience them as different from their usual self, but not as different people. Multiplicity is not experienced in exactly the same way from person to person; each person’s experience of their inner reality is unique.
Discrete alters often have their own names, have a distinct age, and have specific tasks, or roles. One alter may be in charge of feeling anger, another of going to school or work, or be the one who decides which alter gets to be in control of the body at any given time. Alters may have a different gender from the body or a different sexual orientation from the host. There may even be alters who are animals, objects, or abstract ideas. Sometimes people have alters who are experienced as being dead or immortal.
The formation of alters is a naturally occurring psychological process, normally the result of extreme, usually early, childhood trauma. Abusive adults who are aware of the process can manipulate and train the emerging personalities to their own ends. Alters can also be deliberately induced through torture or other means, and then trained and programmed. Some survivors of ritual abuse and mind control have alters organized in elaborate patterns designed by the perpetrators, with strict rules about how the alters communicate with each other.
Integration
“Integration” is a term that can be used to describe two different processes. One is the process of alters learning to communicate and cooperate and share their memories. The other sense of the word is the actual merging (or fusion) of two or more alters to become one. In such cases, nothing is lost: all memories, talents, and personality traits are preserved, but organized in a different way.
Some people do not experience fusion of their alters, finding their lives perfectly satisfactory as long as their alters are communicating well. Others fuse partially, reducing the number of alters. Most people with many alters do this in stages, allowing time for the system to stabilize and get used to the new internal organization. Some people “become one” for a period of time and then either form new alters to deal with new life circumstances, or the former alters split off and become themselves again.
Adapting to being multiple is an on-going process. There are choices to make, decisions that make life easier or harder. There is no hard-and-fast rule about what works best, each person’s path in life is unique.
Programming
Programming refers both to the process of manipulating an alter, and to the content of what is taught, installed, or otherwise established by the perpetrator. Thus you can say that a person has been “programmed” to commit suicide under certain conditions, or you can talk about a suicide “program” that is triggered (activated) by certain words, numbers, visual or auditory cues, or conditions.
Deliberate Trauma-based Dissociation
Discrete, dissociated alters can develop naturally due to extreme abuse, or other overwhelming traumatic experiences, but they can also be intentionally induced. This is sometimes referred to as “deliberate trauma-based dissociation,” and is usually accomplished through the use of torture. People determined to have total control over another person have been known to force their victim to radically dissociate. Pushing their victim past the limit of internal integration in this manner leaves what can be seen, essentially, as a blank slate for the programmers to manipulate to suit their own agenda or their group’s agenda.
Once a victim is “split,” or “dissociated,” that part or alter can be trained and programmed, and exploited privately, by an organization, or commercially. Parts may be programmed to perform only one task or operation, or an unlimited number of operations, or to be a complex or a very simple entity.
Victims of deliberate dissociation commonly have programs installed to make them either behave in such a way as to discredit themselves, or to self-destruct, should they begin to remember their abuse, especially if they speak or otherwise tell about it.
Perpetrators of these crimes can control which alter they want to “come forward” using access codes they have programmed into the alters. These can be as simple as numbers, colors, symbols, sounds, or words, etc. Many victims of DIR have hundreds of alternate, programmed personalities. Typically, these alters are deliberately programmed to have no memory of having been switched after they return to their original state. The “core personality” or host may or may not notice they have “lost time.”
Many of these Definitions are quoted verbatim from, or were adapted with permission from the FAQs pages at NATRCoalition.org/faq/ and ra-info.org/.
Extreme Abuse
Extreme Abuse
(Adapted, with Kathleen Sullivan’s permission)
Extreme abuse can be defined as extreme forms of human-against-human abuse such as human trafficking and slavery; cult abuse; commercial sexual exploitation of children; forced participation in pornography, prostitution, drug sales, arms trafficking, murder for hire, and other illegal acts; child soldiering; kidnapping; false imprisonment; torture; ritual abuse; and mind control.
Human Trafficking and Slavery
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, the buying and selling of human beings, for the purposes of profit and/or pleasure. This kind of exploitation is a common experience among survivors of extreme abuse, ritual abuse and mind control. Many survivors report being traded amongst various perpetrator groups, including cults and governmental contractors.
(From the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime website )
“Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity. It involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, for the purpose of exploiting them. Exploitation includes prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.”
Torture
(From International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims )
“Torture is the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering by or with the consent of the state authorities for a specific purpose. Torture is often used to punish, obtain information or a confession, take revenge on a person or persons, or create terror and fear within a population. Torture is widely used in extreme abuse, ritual abuse and mind control.
Some common methods of physical torture include beating, electric shocks, stretching, submersion, suffocation, burns, rape and sexual assault. Psychological forms of torture and ill-treatment, which very often have long-lasting consequences for victims, commonly include: isolation, threats, humiliation, mock executions, mock amputations, and witnessing the torture of others.”
Non-State Actor Torture
(Adapted From Persons Against NST – Non-State Torture)
Non-state actor torture is torture which is not committed by the state/government, but instead is committed by parents, spouses, other kin, guardians, neighbours, trusted adults, or strangers in the private sphere, for example, in homes, warehouses, cabins, rented buildings, in fields, or in various public and private places.
Non-state actor torture suffered by victims of ritual abuse and mind control is also commonly perpetrated by cult members, or members of other organized crime networks.
Effects of Torture
(From International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims)
“The consequences of torture reach far beyond immediate pain. In addition to the symptoms of PTSD and Dissociative Disorders, torture victims often feel guilt and shame, triggered by the humiliation they have endured. Many feel that they have betrayed themselves or their friends and family. All such symptoms are normal human responses to abnormal and inhuman treatment.”
Ritual Abuse
Ritual abuse is the abuse of a person or animal in a ritualized setting or manner. In a broad sense, many of our overtly or covertly socially sanctioned actions can be considered ritual abuse, such as military basic training, hazing, racism, spanking children, and partner-battering.
However, the term “ritual abuse” more specifically refers to repeated, sadistic abuse, especially of children, usually within a group setting. The group’s or perpetrator’s ideology is often used to justify the abuse, and the abuse can be used to teach the abuser’s ideology, ensure loyalty and compliance, and to create and manipulate alters. The activities are kept secret from society at large, as they violate norms and laws, and violations of secrecy imperatives often result in drastic consequences.
(Adapted From Persons Against NST – Non-State Torture)
Ritualized emotional abuse or torture can include such manipulative tactics as trickery, deceit, blaming the victim, offering impossible choices, forced participation in extremely violent acts, or being forced to witness extremely violent acts. Spiritual abuse can manifest as the reversal of good and evil in a destruction-based indoctrinated morality, or the denial of freedom of thought.
Mind Control
In its most recognizable form, all advertising and media, government, or corporate “spin doctoring” is a form of mind control, an attempt to make people buy certain brands or objects, or believe or do certain things. Political propaganda (my country is right and good, and the other country is wrong and bad) is also an example of mind control efforts in the broad sense of the term.
Where individual manipulation is concerned, however, the definition is much narrower. In this context, “mind control” means that part of a person’s mind has been programmed to obey another person without question, while other parts of the mind are unaware of this situation. This type of Mind Control is established and developed through various means, including the use of:confusion, fear, pain, terror, guilt, shame, humiliation and belittlement; theatrics, trickery, illusion, lies and coercion; sensory/sleep/food deprivation; physical, emotional, verbal, sexual and spiritual abuse; systematic behavior modification and hypnosis techniques; double-bind situations; drugs, lights, sounds, smells, special effects, film projections, hidden cameras and microphones; sets, props, actors, costumes and make-up; role-play “characterizations” based on nursery rhymes, fairy tales, stories, books, movies and music; forced actions against self/animals/others; guns, electroshock, whips; shackles, chains and cages.
BY OURSELVES | ABOUT OURSELVES | FOR OURSELVES | FOR EACH OTHER | 