Clinical, cognitive, creativity and cultural measures in dissociative identity disorder: A controlled study

Abstract

Background: Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is associated with severe clinical and cognitive debilitating psychopathology. Additionally, it is often thought that creativity and cultural differences contribute to DID's symptomatology. Thus, the present study aimed to expand previous empirical data by investigating differences in clinical, cognitive, creativity and cultural measures between two distinct samples in order to gain a better insight into this disorder.

Methods: Clinical, cognitive and creativity self-reported measures of 97 participants from The Netherlands and Switzerland were compared between two groups: 32 participants with DID and a control group of 65 controls.

Results: Participants with DID scored significantly higher than the control group on the majority of clinical and creativity scales, but not on the cognitive measures.

Conclusion: Outcomes indicate heightened dissociative, depressive and anxiety symptomatology, as well as increased traumatic experiences, parental affectionate control and sleep disturbances in individuals with DID as compared to controls. These findings replicate and corroborate previous empirical findings and support the Trauma Model of DID. No cultural differences were observed between Dutch and Swiss individuals with DID.

Keywords: Anxiety; Dissociation; Psychopathology; Simulation; Sleep; Trauma.