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Updating an earlier edition (Sinason 2002), this collection of works re-investigates aspects of what the editor feels are the still unaddressed and unexplored subjects of dissociative identity disorder (DID) with several new chapters on police work and attachment theory, and many personal reflections of abused individuals. There can be no doubt that these topics are the source of much disagreement and denial. However the monetary and legal consequences of the last few years of public media reporting and trials of abuse within the Catholic Church as well as other denominations perhaps has taken considerable steam out of the ‘false memory’ argument and denial systems. For those who have worked with these issues for a number of years or who have witnessed the significantly increased professional and lay discussion about these topics, the emphasis on proving the reality of abuse and multiplicity does not feel new.
This is a book with an underlying theme of describing psychological fragmentation and dissociation resulting from seriously disordered and perverted attachment relationships, and the societal factors leading to both the denial and perpetuation of the condition and its etiological factors in Great Britain. It begins with a section describing dissociative identity disorder and attempting to integrate it with attachment patterns, research and cultural interactions. Contributions by Peter Fonagy, based on earlier work by Mary Main, give an overview of attachment theory and the importance of metacognitive capacity—the parent's capacity to observe the child's mind, and the way in which in normal circumstances the child's general understanding of minds is developed. He then goes on to apply this to the impossibility—in the cases of severe and chronic emotional, physical and sexual abuse—for the developing individual to tolerate ‘knowing’ the mind of an attachment figure who is also the perpetrator of abuse. Fonagy goes on to propose that dissociation becomes the way t