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intro.psych (Psyco 105) Discussion: Group 2 Discussion Group: Reading the Research-DID: Is the research important?
By Admin on Thursday, November 12, 1998 - 10:16 am:
Do you think this research is important? What theoretical and/or practical issues can the research address (if any)?
I'm not realy sure if this research is that important. I know its important to undertand that some memories between personalities don't tranfer in order to better treat the person. But wouldn't the research be better to focus on how to cure these patients? I also know that there is hope that this sort of research would help understand memory in every one, but still I wonder if this sort of reseach does more harm than good for the people involved
I'd agree with Angela if this were a study of "deficit hunting" where we go out and look for something wrong or different in clinical populations. But try to go beyone the context of the particular study - is it worthwhile to know about memory in DID? Maybe we could design a test to determine "real" DID (it seems to be increasing in diagnosis but may not really be increasing in the population) from this? Maybe we could elarn about how memory is organized in "normal" people?
Although Angela has a good point, I still believe that any research is to some extent, worthwhile research. Especially in the case of DID, where very little is known of the disease, these sets of experiments showed that there is some information that is passed on from one personality to another. To put it into a car analogy, one must figure out how a car works before the mechanic has any hope of figuring out how to fix it. And I defenitely agree with Connie in the idea that research using DID may help us understand how "normal" people work (normal is in quotes for the obvious reason that it is just a term used relative to other people). Just like how patients with hippocampal damage (Mr. H.M if i recall correctly)have been studied to show that the hippocampus is involved in the consolidation of short term memory into long-term memory, but not in the storage of memories.
I do understand that this research can lead to a better diagnoses. I think thats good. I also think that understanding what causes the lack of memory is important. It makes a lot of sense when you look at it in the point of view that DID usually is a defensive reaction to a traumatic event. If the personalities know about that cannot as easily defend against it. (I'm not sure if that makes sense) Perhaps a good off shoot of this reasearch is to try and break down the amnesia between the personalities so they start to disapear. (iknow this is sort of what therapists do, but I think it might lead to a slightly different, and maybe better approach)
I like what Angela said about the fact that DID is usually iniated by traumatizing experience when they were children. It says alot about how our brains are able to cope with such events, and still be able to function at some level of "normalness" (is that even a word?). Just as people study the brain to see how incoming information changes the structure of the various organs to allow consolidation or storage of memory, studies like this one can also help us understand how our brain changes/adapts to situations that are traumatic. As well, I think it is important to study people suffering with DID, since the unique disorder allows us to study interpersonality amnesia, which may eventually lead to the discovery of how different parts of the brain are able to coordinate with each other with respect to memory.
You know I was thinking more about this memory thing, and I was starting to think about what is said about people only using 10% of our brain, how much do DID patcients use? This research starts to look into how the brain works, and what its actually capable of. What if we can go beyond this and look at how we can utilize the brain in ways we hadn't even thought about before! Perhaps there is more potential here then than originally thought.
I don't think that this research is that important. They don't really need to waste time on that. As Angela said they should spend more time on trying to find a cure for this rather then seeing which personalities occur similarily with the other's. Which words are striked upon as important in both. As well as wich words begin with the stem as the other.
I agree with Angela when she says that it is important in understanding what causes a lack of memory. Research is important in determining what causes what to happen. By doing research like this it will help you understand normal people as well. DID patients might have had some traumatic experience when they were younger that lead them to have all these personality disorders.
this discussion question is for marks
Back to the Introduction
By Angela on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 01:15 pm:
By Admin on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 01:42 pm:
Connie
By Daki on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 08:28 pm:
By Angela on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 01:22 pm:
By Daki on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 01:56 pm:
By Angela on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 08:41 pm:
By Rubina on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 11:23 pm:
By Rubina on Wednesday, November 25, 1998 - 08:43 am: