Talk:Dissociative identity disorder/Archive 1

message: I'll try to write a NPOV version, with large chunks of the older material. The problem with the older material is that it was deployed in a way to say, "See there, it IS real". 
I'm not going to resist any treatment that shows the "personality" as a construct, myself. I'm a Buddhist. In the context of Indian philosophy, Buddhism is the non-atman position -- challenging the reality of the self that we so often try to protect. 
But then I don't want to go too far the OTHER way, in presenting my viewpoint as the truth ... 
Zora 21:05, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiplicity in different cultures? 

message: As I understand it, the usual way that Wikipedia does NPOV on extremely controversial topics is by saying, "Well, there's this POV and that POV, and that POV ... " and trying to be as exact as possible in presenting the different viewpoints. 
However, this can't extend to giving a precis of the views of J. Random Contributor if J. Random is highly atypical. That's really not encyclopedia material, is it? 
Suppose we're writing an article about flat-earth theories. We can say:
People used to believe that the earth was flat, but now most people believe that it's round. The Flat-Earth Society continues to insist that it's flat, and say that ..... blah blah blah.
OK, a society is encyclopedia-worthy. But suppose we added to the article:
Mr. Theophrastus Such of Omaha, Nebraska, believes that the earth is shaped like a carrot. Ms. Mohini Dutt of Mumbai believes that the earth is shaped like a rolling pin. 
Perhaps you'll agree that adding offbeat and idiosyncratic POVs doesn't really add anything to an article. That's more like personal website material isn't it? If you can convince enough people, then you get to be in the encyclopedia. 
So I've been trying to leave out my personal views, and I hope that anyone else here who feels "left out" can understand why this might be necessary. 
Oi, I'm avoiding re-writing. I'll throw myself at it again later today.
Zora 21:24, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anecdotal evidence and personal beliefs 

message: I was a staunch supporter of the wikipedia until reading this article on dissociative identity disorder.  Diagnosed a year ago, I am resistant to accepting it even though there was substantial, and documented, abuse in my past that went on for many years.  This article reeks of bias from the False Memory Foundation and its representatives.  I can understand people being skeptical, however it does exist albeit not quite in the form that has been "popularized" by the media. 
It is suggested that anyone composing an article with this subject for wikipedia does a little bit of research on it besides that of its critics. For every argument against its existence, or of it being primarily iatrogenic, there are serious studies that prove them wrong. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a disorder that someone with it chooses, nor do they share it with people that they know.  It is an illness of confusion, shame, and a seemingly irradicable feeling that something is wrong inside that can never be resolved. 
I hope that you either remove the entry, or perform some serious revision of it as it is an insult to many (documented) survivors of repeated abuse.  
: I replaced an earlier entry that was extremely lopsided and "pro-DID" with one that attempts to present ALL the sides of this controversial issue. The article is a bit lop-sided the other way at present, in that only the skeptical section is much elaborated; the other sections need more work. It is hard to be FAIR, you know? 
: However, it seems to me that what you're proposing is not fairness, but censorship. Calling any skepticism an INSULT doesn't allow for much discussion, does it? Nor do ad-hominem attacks on anyone that doesn't share your position. Because someone disagrees with you, that person must be ignorant? In spite of personal experience, shelves of books, and academic degrees? 
: If you think you can improve the believer section, do. It sounds as if that's roughly where your position fits. 
: Sorry I haven't done a lot of work on the article lately. I've posting lists of Filmfare award winners for the Bollywood articles and helping out at Distributed Proofreaders, which had a sudden influx of new proofreaders needing orientation. Zora 18:51, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  very biased entry on DID 

message: I put much of the cross-cultural material back into "Healthy Multiplicity". I hope that people here who support this position feel that it's a better presentation now. Zora 08:57, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glacial progress 

message: Bluejay, good idea to edit out "sufferers". May not have been a good idea to change everything to "diagnosed with", since people may be convinced they have MPD/DID without ever having seen a doctor or gotten a diagnosis. 
I removed the sentence you added re Gulf Coast tribes because several things about it troubled me. 
Why an anonymous report? If this is a matter of ethnographic record, it's not exactly cloak-and-dagger stuff. 
: My source is a medical professional at the top of her field at a prestigious university. She would lose that position instantly if it became known that she took multiplicity seriously in any form. The official position of her school is that multiplicity does not exist, and that means MPD, DID, nonpathological plurality, the whole deal. What I need to do is find the references she was using for this information. --Bluejay Young 22:39, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Which Gulf Coast? Lots of gulfs in the world. 
Something about the sentence suggests a bogus "ethnographic present", in which some hypothesized "culture as it was just before Western impact smashed it" is carefully extracted from the messy reality on the ground. If the Gulf in question is the Gulf of Mexico, I don't think many tribes would have survived the onslaught, or that they would still be electing chiefs on the basis of "spirits". 
Also, the meaning of "has many spirits" is not very well defined. Do they expect their chiefs to go into trance? How is "has many spirits" demonstrated? 
I hope you can see that there are problems with the information AS PRESENTED. It might be useful info if tweaked; let's discuss it here and see if it can be re-phrased.  Zora 19:30, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gulf Coast tribes? 

message: It seems that whoever complained that the article was "insulting" to people with DID has proceeded to slap the article with a "non-neutral" label. 
I wish that the anonymous denouncer would actually work on the believer section if he/she feels that the position has been slighted. I'm guessing that this is where the denouncer belongs, if the "Healthy multiplicity" and "Professionals who still find the diagnosis useful" sections aren't satisfactory to him/her. If what the denouncer wants is deletion of the "Skeptics" section, I don't think this would be right, since it does in fact represent a widespread viewpoint. 
The believer section could use some work, I admit. I have a hard time doing it justice and need help from someone who holds that position.  Zora 22:38, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not neutral? 

message: Someone anonymous recently added an example to the overview. It was reported with no link (though I found that below) and as if the word of the patient had some extraordinary evidentiary value in proving the "believer" viewpoint. I'm still not sure that something that detailed belongs in the overview, but I did leave it there, just reworded a bit to make it clear that these are claims, not "facts". 
I also did a preliminary sort on the links. I had a feeling that they were unbalanced; I think the sort shows that they are. There are MANY links to "proving recovered memories" sites and "multiples speak for themselves" sites, and not much for any other viewpoints. The multiple links need to be  evaluated and trimmed to several of the best in each category, and the missing links supplied. That would include more links to current mainstream professional opinions on DID/MPD diagnosis and treatment. 
I also removed the NPOV notice, as the person (anonymous, IP number only) who put it up there did not do anything, subsequently, to engage in a dialogue in the discussion page, or even to expand and improve the "true believer" section. 
I should perhaps add that it improves the level of discourse dramatically if contributors are willing to register, take usernames, and engage in dialogue. We can only thrash out NPOV articles if people with opposing viewpoints talk TO each other. Zora 01:06, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links need work, removed NPOV notice 

message: Hi, Bluejay, I hope you won't feel disrespected by my further edits on the shamanism paragraph. It's me being anthropological again. There are many folk religions where shamans are NOT trained from childhood -- and others where they are. People do not necessarily venerate the shamans; they may be regarded as weird, uncanny, but useful in emergencies. Kind of like computer geeks. But then some sects do revere their shamans. Religions that have shamans may not recognize spirit illnesses. I say MAY because I'm not sure; it would only take one counter-example to prove the thesis wrong. People who recognize spirit illnesses may not have shamans (which was true of Tonga, where I did my fieldwork). That engrained academic cautiousness is why I festooned the para with "may"s and "maybe"s. There's a fuzzy kind of general picture, but you can't say that every single instance of shamanism displays ALL the diagnostic features. Zora 03:40, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shaman edits