^ Dissociation - Astraea
<p>Sep 29, 2014 12:56 PM</p>
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http://astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html#median<--- Links within this note section found by clicking link to Astraea's original source)</p>
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Dissociation - Originally, the process by which aspects of one's own personality which are unacceptable to oneself or to society are stifled, set aside, disclaimed. Early psychiatric investigators believed this occurred because of societal or parental pressure, and that it particularly affected women because of their lower status, but men too. The idea was that these denied aspects, if they reached critical mass, could form into a second personality. William James and Carl Gustav Jung wrote about this.</p>
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Today, dissociation has been redefined as a rejection of traumatic events, a kind of willful forgetting, an elaborate pretending, and a conscious effort to believe that the events "happened to someone else". Like many neurotic mental states, it's assumed to be a form of flight from reality syndrome. Not all abused children do this -- not all multiples do this (we never did), but that is of no consequence to mental health professionals, because if you tell them the truth about your experience, they can always say you're in denial!</p>
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Recently, dissociation is being redefined again; simple absentmindedness, or merely thinking about one thing while doing another so that one loses awareness of one's immediate surroundings. If this is correct, dissociation is a lucrative industry, what with all those copies of The New York Times being sold at train stations, and all those books on tape for people driving to work.</p>
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Some people suspect that there is no "dissociation epidemic" and that the mental health industry is pathologizing ordinary life problems. The idea that thinking about anything other than your immediate surroundings is wrong smells of mystical doctrines such as those of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, or the "be here now" of 60s gurus such as Baba Ram Dass. In other words, useful for some people, but not to be taken as gospel, or as necessary to mental stability, by everyone. (Psychiatric)</p>