Page 29 - PIECES OF THE PUZZLE Eline Vissia

Thesis outline
As described in previous paragraphs, neuroimaging studies in DID are limited and the disorder remains controversial. In order to add insight to the etiology debate regarding DID, further research is needed to elucidate the neural and psychological substrates of this disorder.
The aim of this thesis is to provide more knowledge about DID. A group of DID simulating healthy controls was included in studies of this thesis to investigate the degree to which DID can be simulated on both neural and psychological measures, allowing a direct test of the fantasy model. A global overview of thesis related topics is provided above in the general introduction. Chapter 2 discusses a range of psychological measures in DID and several control groups, covering both the trauma and fantasy model. Chapter 3 focuses on investigating differences in morphology of the hippocampus between DID, PTSD and HC in relation to childhood maltreatment. Chapter 4 and 5 focus on working memory functioning and test the trauma and fantasy model respectively, including both PTSD and DID simulating healthy controls as control groups. Finally, a general discussion follows, with a reference to implications for clinical practice and suggestions for future research. In sum, this thesis focuses on the etiology discussion of dissociative identity disorder in a broad sense and more specifically the importance of assessing personality state differences.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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