Preliminary Observations on Age Regression in Multiple Personality Disorder Patients before and after Integration

Abstract

A review of research data serendipitously revealed that 12 individuals treated successfully for multiple personality disorder (MPD) had undergone age regression procedures both before integration and after 27 months or more of apparently continuous integration. Subjective experiences and reports of historical events during these procedures often differed in the divided and integrated states. Age regression in firmly integrated patients did not retrieve the separate experiences of separate selves. It appears that a restructuralization of certain aspects of memory and self-representation may occur during the successful treatment of MPD. Analogous phenomena may occur in connection with non-therapeutic challenges to such patients' dissociative barriers and defenses, such as those encountered by an individual who suffers MPD and experiences successive interviews and assessments in a forensic context.

Keywords:

• Multiple personality
• regression
• hypnosis