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Dissociative Identity Disorder And Treatment Of Severe Depression Essay

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Karen Overhill first visits Doctor Richard Baer on January 11, 1989. She has faced a lifetime of sexual, physical, emotional, and mental abuse at the hands of those meant to protect and love her. Though she is initially visits Baer for treatment of severe depression, in the next four years it will become incredibly clear that Karen suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, or, more commonly known, Multiple Personality Disorder. The rest of her treatment becomes dedicated to uncovering the reasons her mind has constructed these personalities and reveal the truth hidden in the periods of time she’s lost. Karen suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, a mental illness characterized by “ a disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personalities” “ that alternate control of an individual’s behavior” (Bell, Jacobson, Zeligman, Fox, & Hundley 151). These personalities are often adopted as a sort of coping mechanism to persistent, extreme trauma faced throughout childhood, sexual abuse being the most common. An individual with Dissociative Identity Disorder will often experience several “blackout” episodes where time escapes them and they lack any sort of remembrance of where they are or how they got there. This, as is the case for Karen, creates a cycles of panic where she has no clue as to why she’s in a department store buying a hat for her son when she intended to go grocery shopping (Baer 27), or to extremes such as not remembering having sex with

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