#pluraldeepdive

[pluraldeepdive]

Let's Fact Check: Was MPD renamed to DID for Harmful Reasons?

(Disclaimer: This post contains descriptions of ableism and disbelief in plurality. I do not condone any hatred towards any person mentioned on this post. If you see anyone attacking them, please report them for harassment! This post was made to spread awareness, not negativity.)

In this post, we will be investigating the claim that multiple personality disorder (MPD) was renamed to dissociative identity disorder (DID) for harmful reasons.

Origins of the claim

This claim most likely originated from a (now privatized) wordpress blog post made in 2019.

Click here for an archive of the blog post.

In this post, the author is discussing a blog post they found that's written by Allen J. Frances, the chairman of an outdated edition of the DSM. After reading his blog post, they came to the conclusion that Frances renamed MPD to DID out of malicious intent towards people with MPD because his blog post states that he does not believe in MPD.

This wordpress post was later linked on Twitter, where many users began repeating the claim. As it spread across Twitter and other social media platforms, the claim has adopted several variations. Some people claim that Frances attempted to get rid of MPD entirely, some claim that he renamed it as a scheme to erase all plurality, and some claim that “DID” is an ableist or offensive diagnosis because of all of this. It seems like most of the people spreading these claims do not have DID themselves, however.

Click here for a link to an imgur folder showing examples of this claim in online plural spaces.

The post by Frances

Now, let's look at the blog post that was cited as proof that MPD was renamed to DID for harmful reasons.

Click here to read his post (TW for fakeclaiming and ableism).

This post was written in 2014. In it, Frances is expressing how he doesn’t believe in what he calls MPD. He personally adheres to the debunked skeptical models which suggest DID is created through therapeutic suggestion or is a “fad”. He talks about how he wished he could remove MPD from the DSM-IV, but couldn’t do so. The next best thing, to him, was to allow controversial statements to be injected into the manual. These statements were removed in the current edition of the DSM.

Frances does not mention anything about the diagnosis's name change.

Addressing bias & concerning behavior

First of all, it’s important to look into the author of the wordpress blog to understand how reliable their word is. The author is a median system who I found out, from the blog, is @/multi_sapphire on Twitter. She also runs the blog @/acting-nt on Tumblr, which is a fact known by many in the online community.

At the time of making her blog post, she did not identify as having DID. She is openly anti-psychiatry, as well. While I don't want to make this a big focus, this system also has a history in the plural community of being very hateful towards the DID label. I have had to make a PSA about them before for posting hatred in the DID tags (source). They are the coiner of the term "traumascum" among other things (source). Many, many PSAs have been made about her by other systems about various concerning behavior (source).

Frances’ post can be easily triggering to anyone with DID, OSDD, or plurality. It’s understandable how a system, who was already unfavorable towards psychiatry, came to think that all of the changes made to DID in the DSM-IV were done out of malicious intent. Let's investigate that next.

Addressing how the DSM is made & who coins names

For anyone who doesn't know, "DSM" stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is a handbook used by clinicians to diagnose mental disorders.

The DSM-IV is an outdated edition that is no longer in use. It was published in 1994 and was replaced by the DSM-5 in 2013. While Frances was the chairman of the DSM-IV, he was kicked off the taskforce and has nothing to do with the current DSM. Most of the changes he made were completely reversed in the current manual.

The DSM taskforce is run by many people. Diagnoses are divided across different work groups who receive input and data from researchers that specifically research and work with people with those disorders. Suggestions are proposed from the researchers to the work groups, who then analyze this, conduct field trials, and propose changes that should be made to the DSM (source).

While Frances oversaw the taskforce, he is not listed as a member of any work group or researcher in the DSM-IV. This means he did not come up with any of the proposed changes to the DSM-IV.

Why MPD was renamed to DID

All of the dissociative disorders were renamed at the same time! All of them, except for DPDR, were changed to have the word “dissociation” in them. Researchers explain that they proposed this change in order to make the dissociative nature of these disorders more understandable.

Psychogenic amnesia was renamed to dissociative amnesia.

Psychogenic fugue was renamed to dissociative fugue.

Multiple personality disorder was renamed to dissociative identity disorder.

Atypical dissociative disorder was renamed to dissociative disorder not otherwise specified.

When it comes to DID in particular, there are two main reasons for the shift from multiple personalities to dissociative identities. Hersen et al. states the one of these reasons is that the term 'personality' defines "the characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings, moods, and behaviors" of the whole brain (source). This is what makes alters identities rather than personalities. According to this definition of personality, having multiple personalities would mean having multiple brains! The second reason is that the older term emphasized the alters over the dissociation (same source).

In my opinion, refocusing on the dissociation rather than the alters allows people with DID to have the full spectrum of their symptoms recognized, and helps distance plurality from disorders. Many plural systems don't view their systems as the problem. Many systems don't have DID, either. The shift in this diagnostic language has made it much easier for that distinction to be made! It's very unfortunate that false claims have been made about this, casting more stigma onto both DID and non-DID systems.

Summary

To summarize everything:

The claim that MPD was renamed to DID for harmful reasons most likely originated from a 2019 blog post.

The author of the blog post was reasonably concerned about a figure of authority being ableist. However, their own biases against the DID label likely influenced their claim that the DID label was created by said figure of authority.

In actuality, that guy did not come up with the name "DID." Researchers are the ones who did.

MPD was renamed to DID in order to make it more understandable and put an emphasis on dissociation.

All dissociative disorders were renamed along with DID to include the word "dissociation" in them.

[circular-bircular]

do you have a favorite post or info from pluraldeepdive? it looks like lots of good info but i’m not sure where to start

I tend to look on the timeline and just go step by step. I visit the website when trying to refresh myself on the natural multiplicity movement. I also like their tumblr post about the history of the term system — I post that frequently.

[sysmedsaresexist]

SAS tracking the tulpa

So here’s some interesting things I just learned.

This is a very basic overview, no, it’s not going to cover all the nuance, it’s just something interesting that puts a twist on the whole tulpa thing. Please see my statement at the end.

The work of Helena Blavatsky (HB), a Russian mystic, influenced the work of Alexandra David-Néel (ADN), the person who basically brought tulpamancy to the public eye in a real way

HB claimed to have travelled to Tibet, which was closed to foreigners, and the movement of women was restricted during this period (ie. she probably didn’t actually go and her books are fiction-- OH, and she wanted to lead an expedition into Peru to find the tunnels to hollow earth). As well, ADN is actually credited as being the first woman to visit Tibet, not HB before her. [x]

BUT, here’s a fun twist.

It’s possible that ADN never went to Tibet, either (that’s a link, click it)

So what does that mean for this “cultural exchange” if it was never actually exchanged?

But let’s assume she did go, and she did sneak into Tibet posing as a beggar, and continue on with the 💲 💲 💲 money 💲 💲 💲

The work of HB first brought mysticism and eastern religions to the West, and had already resulted in a financial boom around the topic of eastern religion and mysticism. Thus, when ADN started publishing her (largely fictionalized and dramatized) books around the same time, she basically made all of the money. That link is actually an extremely interesting read. Especially the part where she’s quoted as saying:

Anticlericalism is out of fashion: it is one result of the war. When men are scared they turn to the gods, to the supernatural, like children that hang to their mother’s skirts. A breeze of spirituality blows over the world alongside with the blast of the cannonballs that rip through the air. Vulgar religiosity will turn into longing for philosophy in the larger-scale minds. I have some idea that my books on Vedanta and Tibetan mysticism are likely to meet the needs of many readers after the storm. 

So what does it mean for the “cultural exchange” if most of her work is largely considered fiction, rather than travel or auto-biographical?

Let’s talk about tulpas, though.

Anyone who has read “Tracking the Tulpa” will recognize some of the following names, but there was one point in that article that caught me off guard. The statement that ADN was the first to use tulpa.

ADN probably actually pulled inspiration from the Tibetan Book of the Dead (called tulpai-ku within, she wrote it more as she would have pronounced it) mostly translated by Dawa Samdup (DS) in 1927, who had worked with and been very close with ADN. Her use of tulpa was in 1929. [x] (I died reading that paper)

DS died in 1922, though, and Walter Evan-Wents, who had a terrible grasp on the language, finished off the book with his own interpretations and translations.

Point is, she had likely been aware of the concept prior to her book and the supposed events contained within it.

Which brings us back to her fiction writing and making those big dollars to entertain those damn, post war, depressed white people.

Again, this is by no means meant to be a history lesson, you all can go and do your own research. I am largely unfamiliar with Buddhism and Tibet, but I was reading about HB and came across her connection to ADN. While I cannot and will not discuss any topics of Buddhism, Tibet and even tulpas, I can talk about a bunch of old white ladies making money off mysticism, because I (by all technicalities) am part of that group, and bitches be wild.

[antiendovents]

very sad to me that pluraldeepdive was able to do all that research on the origins of the endogenic community in the late 90s-early 00s and how hateful and harmful it was and how they actively tried to get did to stop being diagnosed and to convince real systems that they didnt need help and should stop going to therapy..... only to turn around and become pro-endo themselves. i dont get how you can see something founded in such profound ableism and think its perfectly fine. their account is what pushed me from endo neutral to firmly anti endo. i dont understand how they took the same information and came to the opposite conclusion.

when I searched that up I came across a website. It is disgusting and I want to bleach my eyes. Literally everything they say is so ableist I'm fucking disgusted that they could do all that supposed research and then still come to the conclusion that "oh yes, plurality is totally a fun thing EVERYONE can just have because why not? Who CARES about those who suffer with it because they have a serious disorder, fuck them, let's all pretend to be plural for fun!"

[ellipse-society]

I'm so exhausted so not even going to try. History of the word "system" in the context being discussed in syscourse.

[sysboxes]

Whys non-traumagenic in the dni?/nm/genq im not sure if theyre a bad thing or not!

hi! there are varying opinions throughout syscourse but there’s a few reasons we don’t like non-traumagenic systems or supporters interacting with this blog. first and foremost is that many of the mods here have been harassed and actively harmed, through threats, doxxing, abuse, etc. by the endo community. even with our dni we still get some real shitty anons. a lot of the community also spreads misinformation, much of which has sent plenty of people back in recovery, and a fair number take part in cultural appropriation. furthermore, our experiences as CDD systems are incredibly different from non-traumagenics. regardless of whether or not we believe they exist, most of our experiences of DID and alters are intrinsically connected to having trauma and other symptoms such as dissociation and amnesia that we don’t really have much of anything in common.

u can do research and investigation into things (@pluraldeepdive has some good resources on the history of syscourse) and come to ur own conclusions; we don’t wanna tell u what to believe. we’re not really here to participate in syscourse; there are just certain communities we’d really rather not interact with.

[corinescorner]

Endogenic systems are just as valid as CDD systems.

First, what are endogenic systems? Endogenic systems are plural systems that don't attribute their plurality to trauma.

Plurality, being more than one in one brain, is a lived experience, not a product of trauma. Endogenic systems deserve the same respect, community, and compassion as CDD systems.

The human mind is complex, and we do not know everything about it. Science is always changing, and we're always finding new things about the brain. Denying the validity of endogenic systems suggests that trauma is the only "acceptable" way to being plural.

This not only excludes endogenics, this also pressures trauma-related systems to "prove" their trauma, which can be retraumatizing.

It can stem from neurodivergency, cultural practices, being born with it, or even a practice of mind. These are all valid origins.

People are their own experts of their own mind. If someone identifies as a system and their experiences plurality in their life, this should be respected.

Plurality has history and culture, I can't recommend it enough to research it. @pluraldeepdive has an amazing and informative website with sources.

[thecircularsystem]

I’m not making a big post rn — mental health bad, very tired, very sad—

But please, for the love of all things

There is no “umbrella” term. There is no Universally Okay Thing to call people, and you are going to hurt people.

It is valid to say that, in general, the community’s history has dictated that plural is for those wanting to distance themselves from the medical structure of systemhood (as shown by the natural multiplicity movement, please check @pluraldeepdive and look at their website to see the history), whereas system is a more medically based term.

If you call me plural at this point, you will be actively hurting me. And hey, people will make mistakes.

But please try to just, idk, fucking ask people what they want to be called directly? Don’t just automatically assume, regardless of anything, what people want

[subsystems]

how come y'all took down your blog that detailed the long history of endogenic systems actively despising DID/OSDD systems? and how come you support endogenic systems now...? what happened to y'all?

The research and info that was in the essay is still available. Check @pluraldeepdive. I took down the original essay because I wasn't happy with how often people used it to attack endogenics. I don't like how I wrote it and still intend to rewrite a similar essay someday.

Also, I don't know where you've been but I've been supportive of endogenics for years now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't give a flying fuck about other people's personal beliefs on their own brain experiences and their labels of choice. It's none of my business.

I still have issues with the endogenic community and especially the online history of it but the same goes for the CDD community. Doesn't mean I don't support CDD systems.

If that bothers you then just block me and move along.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hey! Do you know of any other blogs that talk about multiplicity that you'd recommend? Esp ones that are more informational or share resources?

Ah so, we had seen a new multiplicity blog pop up recently, but we can’t seem to find their @ at this time…

@plural-culture-is is a nice multiplicity blog, though we aren’t sure how often they share information and resources.

@subsystems is very resource and information-centered, with a focus on DID and PTSD.

@pluraldeepdive has a wealth of information on plurality throughout history.

@system-society offers advice, answers questions, and shares resources, we do believe.

And we’d like to open this up to our followers to recommend blogs they like that are plurality/multiplicity focused… our apologies for not having more recommendations.

🖋 Cecil and 💼 Lucille

[pluraldeepdive]

Some adorable soulbonding buttons I found archived in 2003 from this (now deleted) soulbonding webpage.

(Disclaimer: This is an archiving blog that posts about plural history. Links and images in this post are from the past, saved by the wayback machine. Please be mindful that not all soulbonders consider themselves plural or consider their soulbonding to be plurality.)

[circular-bircular]

What a great time to remind everyone that pluraldeepdive exists and that pluraldeepdive wrote an entire deep dive about the term “System” and how it’s a community term, and all of the history of that term ✨ You should check it out! They have a tumblr and their own website.

[sysmedsaresexist]

hey! so i saw in one of your posts that a lot of system terminology that ppl claim is stolen isn't actually stolen, i'd like to know if you have a list or source with terms that aren't stolen? thank you in advance!

This is actually a bit of a hard ask. It would be impossible to list them all, and every time I turn around someone is saying a new term is stolen. Sourcing most of this would be impossible, as the proof is either in the complete lack of use in clinical literature (eg system hopping, with my all access, I've never seen it used, even within RAMCOA literature, and @sophieinwonderland found the coining of it, if you want to drop a link to it), or its extreme overuse in other fields and concepts (eg system).

Obviously system hopping isn't stolen, system reset is one we never wanted and isn't ours, side system is community made.

Endogenic, traumagenic, and dissociation don't belong to us.

System itself is better said to have started in clinical literature for early DID but has expanded to so much more. Fighting this point is a losing battle, and that has nothing to do with endos and more to do with IFS therapy and it being such a generic word with so many uses. So long as people stop lying and saying it was never used for DID before IFS therapy in the 80s, I don't care about this one. It's like fighting with a programmer over computer system because its use in that respect is implying people with CDDs aren't human. I have issues with shared language and I wish there were different terms, but you have to just accept this one.

Most endos are pretty respectful about system roles, and they're not too interested in using them, much like introject, dormancy, and alter. Most endos burst into flames if you so much as even think those words in their direction. This falls into the same problem as system, and it was more IFS that fucked it, not endos, so while I'm extremely protective over some terms, like introject, persecutor and protector, you can't really help it. Look at the word little, it's not only endos using it. Even the very IDEA of system roles exists in IFS. Like, if you ask me, I think IFS might be what a number of endogenic systems are experiencing, but that's a topic for another time.

Plural was never for people with DID, multiple was the typical/preferred term for the longest time for medicalized systems, but I've actually seen the opposite happening and CDD systems are saying multiple is the endo term and plural is ours. Weird, but okay.

Fictive started in the soulbonding community.

Alter and subsystem are both so convoluted in psychiatry that the most you can say is that they're general clinical terms. I don't know why any endo would want to use them, but I do see subsystem used a bit (and my wording was that most words aren't stolen).

I'm sure people can think of a thousand others, but I think that covers the major ones.

Thanks to @pluraldeepdive for the help with this one, give them a follow if you're not already, their blog is wonderful.

[fictionfreedom]

Hey, this is thecircularsystem. I wanna apologize for coming out of the gates swinging like that, and for being so aggressive. The natural multiplicity movement was a movement designed to demedicalize DID, something that would’ve straight up killed me, had it happened in my lifetime. I get really touchy at that concept.

You didn’t deserve that. Lessons in letting my emotions chill out a bit before I respond.

I hope SAS can provide good links for you. 💙 If you’re ever curious, pluraldeepdive is a great website for the history of plural spaces, and explains a lot about the NMM and its effect on syscourse at the time. They have a blog and a website.

Alright, thank you for those, and I hope so too! Don't worry too much about an apology, I get that for almost everyone in these arguments their anger usually comes from a personal affect from whatever is being talked about, same reason we made that post originally and why it's probably worded horribly

[thecircularsystem]

I genuinely think that’s the first time I’ve been blocked for sending pluraldeepdive to someone

[pluraldeepdive]

I want to share this archive of Multiple Personality Gift -- a workbook for people who have or are questioning DID or any sort of trauma-formed system. I believe it was written back in 1991 by Jacklyn M. Pia, a satanic ritual abuse survivor and DID system.

Click here to read it.

It's pretty short but a wonderful read, nonetheless! 😊💕 Although the information about DID is somewhat outdated, there's so much love and positivity put into this workbook. Many of the tips they give about system management are things that I also learned in therapy for my DID. It can be very, very helpful. I hope you guys enjoy reading it!

(Disclaimer: This is an archiving blog that posts about plural history. The events and resources in this post are from the past. Please be mindful that language/views especially regarding mental disorders changes over time. Sources on this post may not reflect up-to-date info on dissociative disorders or plurality.)