Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50007 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
The author explores the fragmented and often fragile human psyche, revealing common, everyday forms of dementia that plague millions of people, discusses the impact of traumatic memories in one's daily life, and assesses the instances of dissociative mentall states and multiple personality in everyd

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended Read!
Martha Stout gives a great insight into area of dissociative personality disorders and how it functions as a survival mechanism in the young child when trauma happens. The book is easy to read with many case studies which highlight the subject. I found it very interesting as it was easy to see how the spacing out and dissociating operates both in myself and in friends and family around me. It has given me much to think about and to question about my own childhood especially, and that of some of my family members/ancestors. The book is written with much heart and with a great belief in the human spirit. A very valuable contribution towards understanding the human experience.

A cogent, enlightening read
Martha Stout has written a cogent, eminently readable book on the wide range of dissociative reactions we have to different stimuli, providing meaningful insight into the behavior of ourselves and those around us. We are all a little bit crazy, she declares. This book was something of an eye opener for me, as I had never considered dissociation as a common condition in society. Dissociation is actually a natural survival mechanism that has helped man survive for thousands of years on this planet; in cases of extreme, disturbing stimuli, the human mind may be unable to handle what it is witnessing, so it compartmentalizes the trauma into self-contained groupings within it. The person may withdraw his/her own awareness from the situation at hand, and he/she may well have no conscious memory of it after the fact. The effects of significant trauma cannot be self-contained in such a way forever, though, and so eventually the individual begins having nightmares or flashbacks, begins to space out or lose himself/herself at different times, exhibits dramatic mood swings, etc. In the most serious cases, the person may well harm himself or someone else, transform into a completely new person, lose control of his own conscious self, or exhibit what used to be called multiple personalities. It has been my understanding for some time that the number of actual multiple personality cases is extremely small, but Stout points to a small but significant number of cases of dissociative identity disorder (DID), an unknown number of which go undiagnosed.

Pointing to vivid examples from her own case files as well as anecdotal accounts of nonprofessional acquaintances, Stout identifies the points along the dissociative spectrum. The most familiar and benign examples of detachment from self include daydreaming and losing oneself in a good book or movie. At the opposite end of the spectrum is full-fledged DID. In between lie such states as temporary phasing out, habitual dissociative reactions (phasing out whenever a remark or emotion suddenly triggers a trauma from early life), dissociation from feeling (feeling nothing during an event that should be emotional), intrusion of dissociated ego states (feeling strong, usually negative, emotions for no clearly discernible reason), demifugue (feeling adrift from both reality as well as your body), and fugue (losing significant periods of time wherein you unconsciously go about your daily life). In extreme cases, an individual may develop separate personalities of which he/she may or may not be consciously aware, as these separate personalities may or may not have identifiable names.

The source of all these dissociative states, Start argues, is childhood trauma. She is quick to point out that trauma does not necessarily result from a condition of personal harm, although it naturally does include physical abuse, incest, emotional abuse, and similar reprehensible acts. A child has a limited understanding of the world, so he/she may be traumatized in ways his/her parents never even discern; becoming lost, for example, even for a short period of time, can have a lasting, deleterious effect on a child. Years later, some word or sound or smell might trigger this buried trauma, thereby triggering a dissociative reaction in the individual; such root causes of dissociative behavior can be very hard to ferret out. The very process of remembering can be pure torture, but whatever dissociative behavior is negatively impacting the individual's life must be uncovered in order for that person to find healing and live as normal a life as possible. One cannot protect oneself (which is basically what dissociation consists of) and live life to the fullest at the same time. In the end, one's ability to withstand and/or recover from the dissociative effects of early traumas comes down to a conscious choice of personal responsibility.

I'm no psychologist, but Stout communicates her ideas in a way that makes very good sense to me; she even manages to sum up quite distinctly the difference between her techniques and those of psychoanalysis. Her case studies of dissociative identity disorder are of course fascinating, but the biggest thing I will take away from The Myth of Sanity is the insight I have gained into normal, everyday life.

Stirring up thoughts
How many times have you asked yourself why did I act that way, who is this other person acting through me, or why do I repeat the same mental program and actions to similar situations and/or emotions and feelings especially when I realize it hurts others?

I've done this many times and this book has helped me to see a part of the reason why. Everyone goes through some kind of trauma in their childhood, some more severe than others, which affects who we are as adults and how we react the way we do to given situations. We learn to dissociate as a survival mechanism from the pain and stress brought on by trauma that we aren't equipped to deal with as children. As adults we may not remember or understand this dissociation, but we can see a pattern in our behavior and how this behavior affects friends, family and everyone else we interact with, which we can take the responsibility to try to understand and change. I think these two paragraphs near the end of the book tell something important about possible change and the alternative:

"The true remedies are making a safe place, finding out, remembering, not hiding from the memories, and not blaming. Also, at first, simply learning to recognize dissociative behavior in oneself and in others, at least some of the time, may be counted as a part of the cure. By definition, increased self-observation exercises the observing ego, the part of the self that will be able to view dissociation as a currently unnecessary limit upon one's freedom.

These are difficult prescriptions, and as I say, the presence of another person, a therapist or a mentor, is helpful, may even be required. But the alternative is for us to continue in something reminiscent of a tedious science fiction plot in which the otherwise admirable characters are trapped in a hermetic time loop, and repeat over and over again the same galaxy-shattering mistakes, never ascertaining that they have done it all a fathomless number of times before. In this sort of plot, the only way out is somehow to percieve and sever the time loop, of which the only detectable symptom is a wispy sense of deja vu."

A must read book if you want to start to understand yourself, who you are, and why you are who you are.