This paper describes a patient who appears to have a chronic dissociative personality disorder. Renewed clinical interest in dissociative disorders had arisen in North America in the 1980s, in part due to the influence of the Women's Movement which had highlighted the incidence of child sexual abuse. The early psychological observations of Janet, Freud and Jung on hysterical patients who displayed dissociative phenomena were similar to those displayed by the patient. Consideration is given to theoretical understanding of the condition, taking into account the views of the earlier theorists and object-relations theory.

The possibility of trauma, in particular childhood sexual abuse, as a causative factor in dissociative disorders is discussed.