Transing ChildrenTrans activists in academia: Study with "multiple flaws" corrected after it touted medical surgeries to the media. Updated findings now show no proof of benefit from gender reassignment surgery

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[–]fr_bandersnatchghey... 15 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 2 fun -  (19 children)

He predicted the excesses of gender affirming treatment — like the 1990s “enthusiasm” over repressed memory and multiple personality — would be reined in by the courts, not by the psychiatric profession.

So I was very young in the 90's. Could someone clue me in on what went down with repressed memory & multiple personality diagnoses? I'm assuming these were... over-diagnosed fads? Was there blow-back over them at some point? Someone finally observed that the emperor had no clothes? Want's the history?

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 22 insightful - 4 fun22 insightful - 3 fun23 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

I had a huuuuuge wall-of-text comment on exactly this topic back in the old sub. Sucks that it's gone now because it answered all of your questions (and many more questions you didn't even know you had.)

I'm going to do a really sucky summary of what I wrote last time because I simply don't have the energy for a full-blown verbal-diarrhea session right now.

The multiple personality disorder thing goes waaaay back to the movie The Three Faces of Eve (1957) about a woman who has multiple personality disorder, based on a true story. There was also a book, and copycat stories/movie, which caused a public interest in the disorder.

The person known as Sybil, and her doctor Cornelia Wilbur were apparently also inspired by this story. The movie Sybil came out in 1976, also books, and renewed public interest in the disorder.

What these two movies/books/stories did was to embed multiple personality disorder into the psyche of the American public, like a meme. Everyone was aware that such a condition existed, and that it happened to some people, sometimes, rarely. (The same can be said about amnesia, for example.)

What happened in the 80's /90's? Daytime talk shows. Oprah, Geraldo, Donahue, Sally Jessie Raphael. This was the third wave of multiple personality disorder. Attention whores who'd grown up with Eve and Sybil would go on these shows and brag about sometimes HUNDREDS of personalities. There was one lady who had all sorts of people of different ages and races and everything living inside of her and she was jumping from personality to personality on camera, being a man, being a woman, being a little girl, different accents and everything. It sort of became a pissing contest for these talk show guests to out-do each other. And there was a titillation factor of childhood sexual abuse.

What went hand-in-hand with multiple personality disorder was the repressed memories. (When one of your other personalities takes over, you sometimes don't remember what happened to you because "you" were not conscious. And of course, that's where most of the childhood abuse memories hid, and it was always an exciting revelation to pull those memories out and have a satisfying conclusion of "ohhhhhhhhhhh.... so that's why I have 8 billion personalities living in my head, this explains it all!")

Repressed memories became a whole new industry for quacks and self-help gurus. Books were written about it, daytime talkshows devoted episodes to it, Roseanne Barr came out as a victim and really took the movement over the top. As /u/slushpilot said, most of us dismissed this as "those people are crazy" but there were way too many people taking this shit seriously. Many years later Roseanne has since taken back what she's said and has accused her psychiatrist of taking advantage of her, so there's that.

That's basically the answer to your question, so you can stop reading if you want but I just want to wrap up what my original point had been in that old comment.

I had called the 90's era "multiple personality disorder 3.0" Eve Being 1.0 and Sybil being 2.0. 4.0 came with the internet. In the late 90's early 2000's MPD was re-named Dissociative Identity Disorder, but on the internet it had a different name: Headmates, fictives, fictionkin, tulpas. These were anime fans who thought they had anime characters living in their heads. They INSISTED that these were people from an alternate plane of existence that just so happened to be living in their heads, despite being the intellectual property of strangers in Japan, also somehow only able to speak English and not Japanese. You couldn't argue with these people. Along with these people there were the furries and otherkin and the "fuck you, I'm a dragon!" people.

MPD 5.0 = right now. The trans-trenders. The stupid-pronoun collectors. The "I'm a gender that cannot be explained by human words" people. It's no longer about multiple personalities, but the essence is still the same - escapist fantasy that depends on other people believing your bullshit and giving you attention.

Anyway, my old write-up was so much better. This sucks. Maybe I'll re-write it someday and make a post out of it.

[–]KingCandyCane 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Looking at the trans-trend as MPD 5.0 is an eye-opening perspective that I never considered. I look forward to your re-write, if you get to it.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This writeup is still fantastic!! Thank you so much for sharing, that context really helps.

There was one lady who had all sorts of people of different ages and races and everything living inside of her and she was jumping from personality to personality on camera, being a man, being a woman, being a little girl, different accents and everything.

^ Okay, this I find fascinating, that people were claiming to be like this. Because research from the past couple decades shows that like 95%+ of DID patients do not have any overt symptoms. Indeed, if people developed DID in order to adapt by hiding their trauma.. it would be a very useless coping mechanism if the symptoms were so obvious. (If you want any more sources, since you seem super interested in this topic, lmk and I'll dig them out of my email.)

And there was a titillation factor of childhood sexual abuse.

That's sickening.

but on the internet it had a different name: Headmates, fictives, fictionkin, tulpas. These were anime fans who thought they had anime characters living in their heads.

These people are actually still around on Tumblr!! I stumbled across it somehow and was like, WTF.

MPD 5.0 = right now. The trans-trenders. The stupid-pronoun collectors. The "I'm a gender that cannot be explained by human words" people. It's no longer about multiple personalities, but the essence is still the same - escapist fantasy that depends on other people believing your bullshit and giving you attention.

Okay, I 1000% agree with this observation. Except, I actually think there is an even more intriguing link, between MPD and nonbinary trans:

In "nonbinary" trans, there is the idea of "genderfluid". That is, your gender constantly changing. Why might your gender constantly change, you ask? Well... it might "change" if you have "multiple personalities" that are all different genders! If you go on r/DID and especially r/OSDD, you'll see this in action. Why are so many people who claim to have DID-- vast majority, self-diagnosed of course-- also trans?? Very curious.

[–]TovasshiDefinitely a house plant 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's all different flavors of Histrionic Personality Disorder.

[–]slushpilot 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is awesome. Insightful +100 if I could.

I do remember this stuff being a ridiculous sitcom & soap opera trope... So-and-so got amnesia and can't remember who she's in love with! Then they wake up and it was all a dream.

I guess just like gratuitous trans characters are popping up in media now too. It's fascinating for some people I guess.

[–]unUSEFULidiot 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Pretty sure the "satanic panic" started the trend. It was a moral panic, similar to the moral panic around childhood kidnappings in the 80's and the panic around shark attacks in the summer of 2001 I believe.

I recommend searching up Jonathan Haidt on YouTube. The guy has a couple of lectures which give a good overview of the phenomenon.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

edit2: I was vastly uninformed on this topic, sorry. This is probably a better article. https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/aaas04/freydpr/index.html

TLDR: People forgetting their childhood trauma for years is a real thing. Therapists mistakenly using hypnosis to have people "recover" memories they don't have, happened and was harmful but is STILL a debate within academia.

edit: I am reading this article on it, you might find it interesting as well.

Holy hell, this is disturbing.

https://psmag.com/.amp/social-justice/dangerous-idea-mental-health-93325

[original answer]

Well, I don't know what he means about "multiple personality"-- maybe Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which used to be referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder (DID), might be what he is referring to. There are a few psychologists who don't believe it exists, but I am not sure whether he is one of them.

But, about "repressed memories"-- there was supposedly a movement of therapists who tried to pressure their clients into believing that they had been sexually abused as children and had "repressed" their memories of it-- basically gaslighting people into believing they were sexually abused. Saying stuff like "All your problems are due to sexual abuse." tried to use techniques that were NOT scientifically proven to help clients "recover" memories. I do not know how common this was. I KNOW that at least one bad outcome of this was that some therapists were just like, "Anyone who comes out and says they were sexually abused, is making it up". But, tbh I have not done tons of reading on it and have been meaning to. If anyone else knows more I'd be curious to hear.

[–]artetolife 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I don't believe therapists were deliberately gaslighting their patients, they thought repressed memories were a real thing that could be uncovered with hypnosis and other techiques that are now debunked, because in reality people will dream up all kinds of bizarre shit under those conditions.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Ah okay, interesting. I think there are actually some therapists out there still using this stuff, though...

edit: using techniques that don't work, to be clear.

[–]artetolife 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Maybe, but back then there was also a moral panic over 'satanic ritual abuse' that fuelled that whole DID phenomenon and that doesn't exist anymore.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh god... I read "We Believe The Children" it has to be the best book on satanic panic. My favorite part was when the defense lawyers got the children to admit that actor Chuck Norris, the city attorney of LA, and the presiding judge also molested them.

https://www.amazon.com/We-Believe-Children-Moral-Panic/dp/1610392876

I highly recommend it!

EDIT - I was scrolling through my copy of the book just to verify some facts, and I'd forgotten how much content there is in here about the repressed memories fad of the 80's. This is a must-read for everybody. You will not believe the level of stupidity of these adults and the horrors these poor children ended up going through.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Well, DID still exists-- although in very small numbers. Several general-population surveys have put it at less than half a percent of the population.

Satanic ritual abuse though, yeah. That moral panic does not exist anymore.

[–]PassionateIntensity 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There isn't very good evidence DID really exists. There are psychologists who believe it does and specialize in it, and there are psychologists who don't.

https://www.garygreenbergonline.com/w/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Psychiatric_Times_-_When_Psychiatry_Battled_the_Devil_-_2013-12-06.pdf

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/saving-normal/201401/multiple-personality-mental-disorder-myth-or-metaphor

The field doesn't seem to have changed much. Too many political or sensationalized fad diagnoses. It pains me to say that because so many people are legitimately mentally ill and need help, but get enabled or harmed more by psychiatry. Some of the same doctors like Diane Ehrensaft who never suffered any consequences for pushing Satan Panic are now transing toddlers.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There isn't very good evidence DID really exists. There are psychologists who believe it does and specialize in it, and there are psychologists who don't.

No, evidence indicates otherwise. DID exists. The first article you linked did not even claim that DID does not exist, it was talking about the Satanic ritual abuse movement and how Multiple Personality Disorder was overdiagnosed-- which indeed it was. Both the articles you linked are talking about the fad of DID-- the social contagion phenomenon, similar to that of the transgender one we're seeing now.

Evidence supporting the existence of DID:

  • DID patients can be reliably and validly diagnosed with structured and semistructured interviews, including the Structured Clinical Interview for Dissociative Disorders–Revised (SCID-D-R)54 and Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS)55,56 (reviewed in Dorahy et al. [2014]).14 DID can also be diagnosed in clinical settings, where structured interviews may not be available or practical to use.57

  • DID patients are consistently identified in outpatient, inpatient, and community samples around the world. 12,37–45

  • DID patients can be differentiated from other psychiatric patients, healthy controls, and DID simulators in neurophysiological and psychological research.58–63

  • DID patients usually benefit from psychotherapy that addresses trauma and dissociation in accordance with expert consensus guidelines.64–66

source: https://journals.lww.com/hrpjournal/fulltext/2016/07000/separating_fact_from_fiction__an_empirical.2.aspx

DID is a rare disorder that arises only in individuals who have undergone severe and repeated trauma in early childhood. This is yet another parallel between DID and transgenderism: Pretenders may come and go, but just because pretenders may latch on to an easily-abused concept, does not necessarily mean that the concept itself is false. This is the same with transgenderism, too: Saying that DID isn't real because there was a fad where people faked having DID, is parallel to saying transsexualism isn't real because a bunch of people are faking being trans. (Of course, some people do think transsexualism is fake, but that's another discussion.)

Now-- whether or not the DID diagnosis would actually be better described as a subtype of another disorder, such as schizophrenia or BPD, has been up for debate in the field for a while. This paper compares DID patients to BPD patients, for example, and they have a lot of overlap, although a few interesting differences as well. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579511/

I know it might seem like splitting hairs to debate this but this does actually exist and affects a tiny segment of the population. Like I said, there's been a handful of research articles that have surveyed the general population for DID, and found 0.5% on average or so. (Edit: I have links to these research papers as well, if you're curious, they're somewhere in my email.)

Some of the same doctors like Diane Ehrensaft who never suffered any consequences for pushing Satan Panic are now transing toddlers.

That is just. So beyond fucked up. Wow.

edit: spelling, added a couple words to clarify

edit2: Also, the second article did not provide evidence suggesting that DID does not exist, and is missing some factual information-- for example, MPD was reframed and altered but still continued as DID, and the article confusingly suggests that it "disappeared, to one day rise again". It did not disappear, but it started getting diagnosed WAY less.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The parts you crossed out are actually true, except that I don't believe it was a malicious case of therapists knowing this person hasn't been abused but is trying to convince the person anyway, it was more like they already believed the person was abused, so they were just trying to help the person realize it (which is of course bullshit because you are a therapist not a psychic, you can't just 'have a feeling' that someone was abused and then roll with it.)

Edit - and yeah thanks to this, for a while no one wanted to believe anyone with repressed abuse memories, there was a sense of 'they're all making it up,' and 'how could you not remember that?' It was a really sucky time for people who actually had repressed memories.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

except that I don't believe it was a malicious case

Yeah, that's why I edited it out, because that seems to be incorrect.

(which is of course bullshit because you are a therapist not a psychic, you can't just 'have a feeling' that someone was abused and then roll with it.)

Completely agree. There has been a lot of research demonstrating that therapists often conflate their # of years of experience, with their judgment capability. They are just as prone to mistaken heuristics and human biases as anyone.

yeah thanks to this, for a while no one wanted to believe anyone with repressed abuse memories, there was a sense of 'they're all making it up,' and 'how could you not remember that?' It was a really sucky time for people who actually had repressed memories.

Yeah that upsets me.

[–]slushpilot 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't remember it being a widespread thing that was taken nearly as seriously as the trans phenomenon today. In any case, it was plainly and easily dismissed by the general population as "those people are crazy" so I think they didn't really persist with it. Now you can't say that.

[–]MezozoicGayoldschool gay 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wasn't that "satanic cult" craze? When with hypnosis therapists found "repressed memories" in thousands of people? And most were "used in satanic rituals when they were kids", because it was big on TV, so people were going to check if they not forgot something like that, and ofc they were finding that they had those!