Thread by @TheRingsSystem

Do you ever read a research on DID with no mention of proving or disproving the disorder, and then realize that the methods are set up in a way where it's clear the author believes people with DID are faking their symptoms?

Specifically, inter-alter memory was being tested on presentation of a stimulus, recognition, discrimination, and other stuff. Instead of following procedures on this topic outlined since 2002 that have wait times of 0-60 minutes between presentation/testing, they waited a WEEK

(really it's been outlined since the 1980's/1990s, but some of the biggest and foundational studies using it came out in 2000-2002 so same difference)

This wait was so that controls perform worse when trying to distinguish between two categories of stimuli.

If DID systems REALLY experience amnesia, they should have no issue discriminating between categories, as the alter tested would have no memory of what the others learned.

Basically, they reverse engineered it so that DID systems "should" do better than controls due to experiencing amnesia, instead of testing for deficits (patient is worse) Meaning, this study was designed to stop DID systems from faking worse symptoms.

(note: this wasn't even the focus of the study, they just did this on top of everything else)

Ignoring all the issues with global amnesia/dissociation folks with DID experience, communication/purposeful memory sharing during the week, and all sorts of other stuff - the procedure being used and 'reengineered' was designed to test for deficits in amnesic patient populations

The simple answer would've been to follow the standard procedure & test for deficits, not bend over backwards to create a "gotcha" situation so DID systems couldn't fake results. It's typically considered controlled for by selecting patients w a diagnosis from clinicians

This then introduced a whole bunch of inconsistencies to the study, by, yknow, waiting a whole week in a procedure not designed to wait that long with patients that experience chronic dissociation & amnesia.

Previous studies using this procedure with patients literally gave them *handouts* during testing and asked them to explain their choices randomly to make sure they remembered what they were doing! And this study decided to wait a whole week between presentation and testing!

I'm just once again flabbergasted by researchers making their studies worse by being so invested in making 100% ABSOLUTELY sure that we aren't faking.

Their data unsurprisingly ended up having huge standard deviations and being not statistically significant (after reducing stimuli count from original procedure too.... which creates worse results :/) and then they went on to conclude things from the statistical insignificance??

Stop 👏 Funding👏These👏People👏Please he's done variations on this about 5 times now and that research money would've been so much helpful elsewhere👏