Dissociation : Vol. 1, No. 3 (Sept. 1988)

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Dissociation : Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 041-046 : The Development of Symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder in a Child of Three
(Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality & Dissociation, 1988-09) Riley, Richard L.; Mead, John
The development of multiple personality disorder (MPD) in a three year old girl is described. She had been followed since the age of 14 months. The subject of a custody dispute, she suffered from multiple on-going traumas, which caused a dissociative state to develop. The traumata were separation from the primary love object, physical and sexual abuse, and deliberate attempts by her genetic family of origin to erase her recall of her early history. The development of her MPD is documented on videotapes that begin before an alter personality is fully developed and continue to the time when the alter personality is clearly separate. Finally, they show the treatment phase during which integration occurred. This is probably the earliest documented case of MPD and it gives credence to patients' retrospective reports of the use of this adaptive strategy at such an early age. This case may also indicate that more attention needs to be paid to the impact of ongoing traumas and the development of acute disorders as a means of minimizing post-traumatic damage.