Carlson Description Quotes

MPD [Dissociative Identity Disorder] is one of the oldest Western psychiatric diagnoses. We have clearly described cases dating back two or more centuries. In addition to the contributions of Pierre Janet, Monon Prince, and others, we have descriptions of early MPD cases by such important historical figures as Benjamin Rush, father of U.S. psychiatry (Carlson, 1981). Thus MPD is consistent across time and cultures; such a claim can be documented for few other psychiatric disorders. And, as this book demonstrates, MPD and other forms of pathological dissociation are found in children and have features that fit with developmental data and theories. Criticisms of the existence of MPD often appear to be directed more at the mass media stereotype described earlier than at the actual condition.

I thought, too, of Thomas Merton's description of hell, where 'no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and themselves.

The survey of the literature from the 1890s through 1910 reveals how the sex chromosome story evolves piecemeal from the many contributions of scientists, sometimes colleagues, sometimes rivals, and each with errors generated by speculations based on incomplete knowledge. Yet each successive finding narrows the interpretive range and in the span of 20 years, a coherent story emerged that has essentially remained unchanged since 1910. Wilson's 1910 description could appear almost unchanged in an introductory biology course today. It is not a story of the victory of one class of scientists over another. It is not the story of a dying out of competitors. It is the 'winning of the facts' that triumphs.