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Multiple Identities and False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective

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I am a former student of Professor Spanos and worked closely with him and Dr. Lorne Bertrand at Carleton University to formulate his approach to understanding the phenomenon of multiple personality disorder during the mid-1980s. MPD or DID
(Dissociative Identity Disorder) as it is now called remains a very controversial diagnosis. If you are interested in learning more about this bizarre condition and you are skeptical by nature you will enjoy this book. Nick was one of the most analytical and clear thinkers whom I have ever met and worked with. In this book, he systematically develops the argument that a variety of social, cognitive, and other psychological and situational factors account for how and why some people present this way and come to think of themselves as having multiple identities--rather than some kind of elusive dissociating of the mind.

If you are tired of reading hocum and "pop" psychology and are looking for a truly scientific review of this phenomenon by one of the greatest and most prolific social psychologists who ever lived I highly recommend this book to you.

Check out Nick's other work on hypnosis, witchcraft, and demonic possession. By the time of his death, Nick had developed an enormous bibliography of scientific articles, chapters, and books. Many of his research designs and methodologies were truly brilliant.

Dr Nicholas P. Spanos was an excellent researcher, a prolific writer and an incredible scientist. Dr Spanos provides a cogent, credible and a scientific explanation for multiple personality disorders and false memory syndrome, among others. His convincing, documented accounts return analyses to a scientific realm rather than the halls of medical sooth sayers with special insights.

Spanos' work has been critiqued and proven as false.

Gleaves states that the research on DID does not support the ideas that DID is a construct of either psychotherapy or the media (the sociocognitive model), but that there is a connection between DID and childhood trauma and that treatment recommendations that follow from the sociocognitive model might be harmful due to the fact that they ignore the posttraumatic symptomology of people with DID.

Gleaves, D. (July 1996). "The sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder: a reexamination of the evidence". Psychological Bulletin 120 (1): 42-59. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.120.1.42. PMID 8711016.

"According to the sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder...DID is not a valid psychiatric disorder of posttraumatic origin; rather, it is a creation of psychotherapy and the media...In this article, the author reexamines the evidence for the model and concludes that it is based on numerous false assumptions about the psychopathology, assessment, and treatment of DID. '''Most recent research on the dissociative disorders does not support (and in fact disconfirms) the sociocognitive model, and many inferences drawn from previous research appear unwarranted.''' No reason exists to doubt the connection between DID and childhood trauma. Treatment recommendations that follow from the sociocognitive model may be harmful because they involve ignoring the posttraumatic symptomatology of persons with DID."


from Brown, D; Frischholz E, Scheflin A. (1999). "Iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder - an evaluation of the scientific evidence". The Journal of Psychiatry and Law XXVII No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1999): 549-637.

"Conclusions...At present the scientific evidence is insufficient and inadequate to support plaintiffs' complaints that suggestive influences allegedly operative in psychotherapy can create a major psychiatric disorder like MPD per se...there is virtually no support for the unique contribution of hypnosis to the alleged iatrogenic creation of MPD in appropriately controlled research.}} Further quotes: "The Spanos socio-cognitive model reduces MPD to socially constructed role enactments. In this model, the often severe psychopathology associated with clinical MPD is minimized. Very recent studies suggest a possible neurobiological basis to MPD in at least certain MPD patients....It is clear that Spanos et al.'s 1985 conclusion that MPD is a role enactment based on their observation of role-playing subjects is based on circular logic: You ask a subject to pretend that he has alters and he complies; then you conclude that having alters is the product of role playing....Spanos's conclusion of the iatrogenic nature of MPD also suffers from an additional logical error. Even if it were true that MPD could be created iatrogenically, that does not prove that every case for noniatrogenic MPD cases....Situationally bound enactment of predefined secondary-personality roles presumes sufficient executive control to do it. Genuine MPD is defined in DSM as the loss of executive control...Genuine DID was defined in DSM-IV as the loss of a unified identity...Presumably none of Spanos's laboratory subjects suffered from a fundamental loss of a unified identity as a result of the experimental instructions....'''Genuine MPD is characterized by enduring alter-personality states that are defined by a relatively stable set of personality characteristics over time....The secondary-personality states reported by Spanos's subjects in the laboratory were very temporary role enactments....Spanos has seriously overgeneralized from the data of his 1985, 1986 and 1991 laboratory experiments that multiple personalities can be created in the laboratory.''' The more conservative interpretation merited by these data is that certain individuals with certain personality characteristics in a particular social context report temporary role enactments of different identities that are limited to the context of the experiment....Overall the Spanos data offer no evidence that either stable alter personalities or the range of clinical features typically associated with MPD can be created in the laboratory, and the data certainly offer no support whatsoever that MPD per se can be created through suggestive influences. At best, these data support the view that certain individuals in a high-demand context, and/or under extreme interview conditions wherein misinformation is systematically supplied, report temporary secondary-personality states....Overall, these data offer little evidence that the disorder MPD per se can be created through suggestive influences."