Thinking - about development of sense of "self", integration, and dissociation - Normal integration of experience into our sense of self can fail, resulting in serious psychological disorders

By: Tom Cloyd - 2 min. read; reviewed: 2024-12-20:2140 Pacific Time (USA))

(NOTE: Following is an extended, lightly edited excerpt from Boon, Steel, and van der Hart’s Coping with trauma-related dissociation¹. This exceptional book is one I very strongly recommend to therapists, their clients, and family members involved with dissociative disorders. I offer a review of the book here.)

Development of an integrated sense of self. “Each of us develops typical and lasting ways of thinking, feeling, acting, and perceiving that are collectively called our personality….Personality is not a ‘thing’ that can be seen, or that lives and breathes, but rather is a shorthand term that describes our unique characteristic response as complex, living systems.

”[We are each] …born with a natural tendency to integrate our experiences into a coherent, whole life history and a stable sense of who we are. Our integrative capacity helps us to distinguish the past from the present and to keep ourselves in the present, even when we are remembering our past or contemplating out future. It also helps us develop our sense of self.

“Each of us has a sense of self that is part of our personality and that should be consistent across our development and across different circumstances. [As we develop,] we gradually learn to connect our life experiences across time and situations with our sense of self.” What happens to us is seen as belonging to us, to our personal history, and so is integrated into our sense of self.

“Usually, people function in a coordinated way so that they make smooth transitions between their response patterns to adjust and adapt to different situations, …smoothly [shifting] …their thinking, feeling, decision making, and acting, yet still experience themselves as the same person. [Their]…personality is stable and predictable….[while] subtly changing, adjusting, adapting, and reorganizing…personality” while learning and continuing to experience their life.

Dissociation as a failure of integration of parts of self. “Dissociation is a major failure of integration that interferes with and changes our sense of self and our personality….Not all failure of integration result in dissociation. Integrative failures are on a continuum. Dissociation involves a kind of parallel owning and disowning of experience. While one part of you owns and experience another part of you does not.

“Thus, people with dissociative disorders do not feel integrated and instead feel fragmented because they have memories, feelings, thoughts, [and] behaviors …that they experience as uncharacteristic and foreign, as though they do not belong to themselves….They experience more than one sense of self, and they do not experience themselves as (completely) belonging to one person.

“These divided senses of self and response patterns are called dissociative parts of personality. It is as though there are not enough link or mental connections between one sense of self and another…” Some parts can be very impaired while others are quite competent.

Development of dissociative disorders. “Dissociation generally develops when an experience is too threatening or overwhelming at the time for a person to be able to integrate it fully…” into their sense of self. “When people dissociate chronically in ways that disrupt their lives, they may be diagnosed with a dissociative disorder.

“There are biological, social, and environmental factors that make [some] people more vulnerable to dissociation.” Young children are more likely to dissociate because “their sense of self and personality are not yet cohesive… [And,] it has long been recognized that those without sufficient social and emotional support are more vulnerable to developing chronic trauma-related disorders, especially those who experience chronic childhood abuse and neglect.”

Note ^{^}

 

☀   ☀   ☀