Dissociative Experiences Scale

In Haunted self the writers do think there's a lot of wrong questions in the test. There's lot of questions about "normal dissociation" like road hypnosis kind of stuff, that is all healthy and normal, and dissociation as a term according to them should ONLY mean structural dissociation. When making dx structural dissociation is what matters, not if you daydream normal amounts, so why to ask about that at all.

Dissociation can mean tons of different stuff, and it becomes hard to understand when the word is over used to mean something that has nothing to do with trauma.

Floralie wrote:In Haunted self the writers do think there's a lot of wrong questions in the test.

I have read that book and that's not the impression I got.

For what it is worth, I appreciate the DES because it does cover more dissociative symptoms than just identity alteration plus amnesia. For me, a long period of severe DP/DR was far more debilitating than the other symptoms. Also, by way of example, the question about highway hypnosis is relevant and important because on discussion with the therapist a distinction can be made between absentminded routine travel and travel in a fugue state.

Una+, no it was said straight out like that. I can try to look at where it was. My book is not in English, so I can't give the exact words or page number, but I try to look what it was exactly and explain where if you wanna check out how it is worded in English.

edit: I can't find it fast, and I'm reading different part of the book now, so I don't want to read more than 100 pages to find it. However it is in Part 1, and I think probably in chapters 3-6, I don't think it was right on the beginning. I can't remember for sure tho, but for sure it is on part 1. They didn't name any questions that would be not needed, I did. In the book was that not all of them are relevant.

YES! I found it anyway. It's in the chapter 5. Headline can be translated to something like Changes in consciousness and dissociative symptoms: research results. The "bigger" title before it is Changes in consciousness. I don't know if those are the exact words, but they are close enough for you to find what I meant. In my book the page is 112, but in English version it can be anything. My language is known for it's long words, but on other hand we can express complicated things with one word, when in English you need a whole sentence to do the same.

This is so complicatedly explained I really struggle to translate it. First they talk about DIS-Q, but that is not important in here now, then it's about DES, and how some questions in DES are about pathological dissociation and some about non-pathological. What they suggest is that the non-pathological symptoms, and they name few, one I can't translate (google says it's immersing or submersing oneself in, become absorbed in, bury oneself in or steep oneself in), daydreaming and imagination, are not related to trauma, but pathological ones are. There are 8 sections in the DES that are about pathological dissociation, they are called DES-T (T for taxon) and they predict (don't know if it's the right word in here, can also be forecast, betoken, presage, augur or one of the 10 other words google suggests) better DDNOS, DID and DP than whole DES does. (Simeon etc. 1998) Waller and colleagues deduced that it supports the original theory by Janet about there being two kind of people, those who have chronic dissociative states and those who don't.

That's interesting about the DES versus DES-T. I had seen the 'taxon' part mentioned on one of the online DES sites (the PODS one) but never understood what it was.

I just tried it this morning and got 68 for the 'DES Mean' and 75 for 'DES-Taxon'.

Arin

Again, the DES is a screening test. The "taxon" questions specific to pathological dissociation could be asked by themselves but in the 30 years the DES has been around, no one using it for research has discarded the other questions. They all have value.

The MID has over 200 questions.

I just told what they (van der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele) said in the book and who did the original research. It was because Zor said

It's not really an exact science kind of thing to "measure", is it?

I did not have any opinions on my own, so there's no need to attack.

Floralie, I am not attacking you or any other poster here.

Parts of that book really irritate me and the editorial part about the DES is especially irritating. It is engaging in an ongoing debate in the research literature, but barely cited in the book, about whether there is a fundamental difference between state dissociation and trait dissociation. I think that using a book intended for therapists as a soapbox, rather than going through the peer review process of publishing in journals, is inappropriate. Also, I am living with dissociation and I find in myself no useful demarcation between state and trait symptoms as represented in this book.

On the same theme, there is a new research paper that finds the situation is much more complex than state vs trait. Here is a link to the abstract on PUBMED:

A correlation network analysis of dissociative experiences.

They gave the DES to 2274 adults from Italy and found that 15 of the questions formed 3 clusters of experience, all involving dissociative amnesia.

Una+ wrote: I think that using a book intended for therapists as a soapbox, rather than going through the peer review process of publishing in journals, is inappropriate.

Sorry, I didn't understand this. I mean literally, I don't understand the meaning these words form together. Could you explain it with easier words?

So the book is meant for the Ts, and.. I can understand every word and what they mean separately, but the meaning of the whole thing I can not understand.

Using something as a soapbox means to express one’s opinion (as in standing on a box, or something else elevated, to give a speech), in a way that doesn’t allow for a dialogue. They’re not demonstrating it with research that could be critiqued, but just using their book to state their unsupported opinion. (Una+, please correct or expand if needed)