RoW Chapter 12 Discussion

[Rainier]

22 minutes ago, Lemiltock said:

I think you are vastly over simplifying DID Shallan is not pretending to be Veil during these times, she is Veil. Just because she has magic to give an outward sign of this change does not mean she is lieing to herself.

Well, if she wasn't lying to herself, and if Veil and Shallan really are different people, then why doesn't Veil get to have romance of her own? Oh yeah, because she even admits to herself that, when push comes to shove, there has only ever been one. You say she is Veil, I say she's always Veil, because the difference between Veil and Shallan isn't the difference between Drehy and Skar, it's the difference between R'lain pretending to be a parshman and R'lain revealing himself to be Parshendi. Not two distinct people, one person playing two (or more) roles.

20 minutes ago, Bliev said:

First, do we think that someone is "half baked" as a Radiant if they don't reach level 5? Very few ever do, right? I know for story's sake, we want to see that progression, but are they failures if they don't? 

It's the apocalypse for these people, and they've got no Heralds. Somebody needs to lead each order, and somebody needs to reach the fifth ideal in each order. I do not think it likely that we'll get through ten books and only nine orders will achieve their zenith.

In short, yes, stopping short of all five ideals I would consider half-baked. Not everyone reaches all five, no, but I don't think we know how rare it is. Did Nale say something to Szeth? We've got very limited information from the gemstone pillar, and slightly more from in-world Words of Radiance. Those are the only three sources I could think of.

If you consider Shallan a real person, of course it doesn't make her a failure if she can't get to #5. But as a character, yes, I would consider it an abject failure if she doesn't. Like I said earlier, I hope this story is not that story. This is epic fantasy, not slice-of-life adventures. 

20 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I don't think that having dissociative identity disorder prevents her progression ipso facto. Just makes it harder.

This is the crux of our disagreement. I view it not as something that makes it harder, but as something that simply can't be reconciled with further progress. She's stuck where she is, and she will continue to be stuck, relative to Pattern, until reintegration.

20 minutes ago, Bliev said:

Just like Kal having depression doesn't prevent him progressing in his order, just makes it harder. And I don't think he'll have to be "healed" to reach level 5 either. 

Depression doesn't stop Kaladin from protecting people, and if it did, then yes it would be something he needs to fix, cure, get over, or otherwise handle before progressing. But we can't compare oaths about protecting with truths approaching self-awareness. Lightweavers are unique in that way, and it is this uniqueness that makes DID not just an obstacle, but an intractable problem.

If Shallan were a Willshaper, she could keep lying to herself all she wanted. If she were an Edgedancer, it wouldn't matter who her alters are or what roles they play. Lightweavers, and Liespren, require self-awareness, because without that you'll eventually believe your own lies.

Shout out to Tyn, for dropping that foreboding line which still hasn't fully manifested for Shallan.

[go_go_gragdet]

About Veil's claim that Shallan has a lower alcohol tolerance than she does, it reminded me of this theory I'd heard of, a few years ago (I suppose more research will have been done since...): drug tolerance is apparently context dependent, and people can "overdose" on their usual dose if it is taken in an unfamiliar setting (setting/context is considered very broadly, here, and can include such things as the environment in which the drug is taken, or the actions performed in taking it). Here's a short article on the subject if you want to get a few leads:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/001012074704.htm

Quote

[...] [A] person consuming a drug in a setting where he or she usually consumes the drug or even expects to consume it will be less likely to feel the full effects of the drug, he says

[...]

Cepeda-Benito says this could possibly explain some drug overdoses in which the person didn't take a greater amount of the drug, but instead, took the drug in an unfamiliar setting, making the term "overdose" a misnomer.

If this is true, it seems believable that Veil and Shallan, despite sharing a body, could have very different tolerances to alcohol, as some contexts may be familiar to Veil, but not to Shallan. By drinking the same amount, Veil could indeed be less affected by it than Shallan (though I suppose Shallan is safe from "overdosing", so to speak, by her radiant powers). From the same article:

Quote

"These are physiological changes mediated by psychological aspects," he says.

In addition to environments and actions, I'm wondering if a different mindset, emotional state, (or a straight up "different personality") could count as an unfamiliar setting...

[Subvisual Haze]

3 minutes ago, go_go_gragdet said:

About Veil's claim that Shallan has a lower alcohol tolerance than she does, it reminded me of this theory I'd heard of, a few years ago (I suppose more research will have been done since...): drug tolerance is apparently context dependent, and people can "overdose" on their usual dose if it is taken in an unfamiliar setting (setting/context is considered very broadly, here, and can include such things as the environment in which the drug is taken, or the actions performed in taking it). Here's a short article on the subject if you want to get a few leads:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/001012074704.htm

If this is true, it seems believable that Veil and Shallan, despite sharing a body, could have very different tolerances to alcohol, as some contexts may be familiar to Veil, but not to Shallan. By drinking the same amount, Veil could indeed be less affected by it than Shallan (though I suppose Shallan is safe from "overdosing", so to speak, by her radiant powers). From the same article:

In addition to environments and actions, I'm wondering if a different mindset, emotional state, (or a straight up "different personality") could count as an unfamiliar setting...

That article is pseudoscientific nonsense.  The only actual research this author did involved 43 rats dosed with nicotine and then exposed to a hotplate.

[Lemiltock]

14 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Well, if she wasn't lying to herself, and if Veil and Shallan really are different people, then why doesn't Veil get to have romance of her own? Oh yeah, because she even admits to herself that, when push comes to shove, there has only ever been one. You say she is Veil, I say she's always Veil, because the difference between Veil and Shallan isn't the difference between Drehy and Skar, it's the difference between R'lain pretending to be a parshman and R'lain revealing himself to be Parshendi. Not two distinct people, one person playing two (or more) roles.

There is significant literature that suggests alters are as real and different as you and me. Here is one good example (see link below) that i think examines your "she is playing multiple roles" adequitely as people with DID where compaired to actors using an EEG. In short, Veil, Radiant and Shallan are indeed distinct people who share a body, and are as distinct as Drehy and Skar, with the obvious restriction of sharing one physical body. 

 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/j229v03n01_06?casa_token=orNOfzJFb7wAAAAA:hTFPtaG1YDq51EfULDdEz2Ol5Zo3_TYaCMHx0iSB5eDNH6lb6qnYrIw75era-e97tpvuV-DZpaeiPQ

[Karger]

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Well, if she wasn't lying to herself, and if Veil and Shallan really are different people, then why doesn't Veil get to have romance of her own?

Because Shallan is married to Adolin and Veil has agreed not to use the body in ways that would make Shallan unfaithful.

23 minutes ago, Rainier said:

You say she is Veil, I say she's always Veil, because the difference between Veil and Shallan isn't the difference between Drehy and Skar, it's the difference between R'lain pretending to be a parshman and R'lain revealing himself to be Parshendi. Not two distinct people, one person playing two (or more) roles.

That is completely false given the modern understanding of DID.  Veil and Shallan are as different as Cultivation and Ruin.

25 minutes ago, Rainier said:

This is the crux of our disagreement. I view it not as something that makes it harder, but as something that simply can't be reconciled with further progress. She's stuck where she is, and she will continue to be stuck, relative to Pattern, until reintegration.

Not all people with DID reintegrate.  Finding a concordat between alters is often preferable.

26 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Depression doesn't stop Kaladin from protecting people

It almost lead him to suicide that did in fact almost cause him to be unable to protect people.  It also does make him less effective at many aspects of combat and leadership.

29 minutes ago, Rainier said:

If Shallan were a Willshaper, she could keep lying to herself all she wanted. If she were an Edgedancer, it wouldn't matter who her alters are or what roles they play. Lightweavers, and Liespren, require self-awareness, because without that you'll eventually believe your own lies.

Someone with DID can be self aware.  The existence of alters does not preclude self awareness.

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Rainier said:

... the difference between Veil and Shallan isn't the difference between Drehy and Skar, it's the difference between R'lain pretending to be a parshman and R'lain revealing himself to be Parshendi. Not two distinct people, one person playing two (or more) roles.

... If you consider Shallan a real person, of course it doesn't make her a failure if she can't get to #5. But as a character, yes, I would consider it an abject failure if she doesn't. Like I said earlier, I hope this story is not that story. This is epic fantasy, not slice-of-life adventures. 

... She's stuck where she is, and she will continue to be stuck, relative to Pattern, until reintegration. ... we can't compare oaths about protecting with truths approaching self-awareness. Lightweavers are unique in that way, and it is this uniqueness that makes DID not just an obstacle, but an intractable problem.

... Lightweavers, and Liespren, require self-awareness, because without that you'll eventually believe your own lies.

Shout out to Tyn, for dropping that foreboding line which still hasn't fully manifested for Shallan.

Totally agree with the above. In particular, I agree that dealing with her so-called DID (which is in some ways self-imposed, in this story, not as what might be the case IRL) is going to be something she needs to resolve to reach the next Ideal, and that narratively Shallan needs to reach the Fifth Ideal, so yes we will see it "resolved" (even if that resolution doesn't mean "integration into a single personality" - that remains to be seen).

And would add that Pattern says as much, to her and to others, that she is blocked by lies she's telling and believing to herself about herself, and that her DID-style coping mechanism is not good for her (particularly with regards to her Ideals).

Excerpts:

In RoW Chapter 8, Shallan thinks to herself:

Quote

...part of finding her balance — three personas, each of them distinctly useful — had come when she’d accepted her pain. Even if she didn’t deserve it.

The balance was working. She was functioning.

But are we getting better? Veil asked. Or merely hovering in place?

I’ll accept not getting worse, Shallan thought.

For how long? Veil asked. A year now of standing in the wind, not sliding backward, but not progressing. You need to start remembering eventually. The difficult things…

And then in Chapter 9:

Quote

She pulled closer, and couldn’t help imagining it. What he would do if he knew the real her. If he knew all the things she’d actually done.

It wasn’t just about him. What if Pattern knew? Dalinar? Her agents?

They would leave, and her life would become a wasteland. She’d be alone, as she deserved. Because of the truths she hid, her entire life was a lie. Shallan, the one they all knew best, was the fakest mask of them all.

No, Radiant said. You can face it. You can fight it. You imagine only the worst possible outcome.

But it’s possible, isn’t it? Shallan asked. It’s possible that they would leave me if they knew.

Radiant had no reply. And deep within Shallan, something else stirred. Formless. She had told herself that she would never create a new persona, and she wouldn’t. Formless wasn’t real.

But the possibility of it frightened Veil. And anything that frightened Veil terrified Shallan.

“I will explain someday,” Shallan said softly to Adolin. “I promise. When I’m ready.”

He squeezed her arm in reply. She didn’t deserve him—his goodness, his love. That was the trap she’d found herself in. The more he trusted her, the worse she felt. And she didn’t know how to get out. She couldn’t get out.

Please, she whispered. Save me.

...She would tell Adolin everything, eventually. She’d told him some already. About her father, and her mother, and her life in Jah Keved. But not the deepest things, the things she didn’t even remember herself. How could she tell him things that were clouded in her own memory?

The root of her... Shall we say, instability, is a lie to herself that she thinks Adolin and even Pattern might "leave her" over, impossible though that should seem for a Crpytic with a Lightweaver bond, and it's not about her killing both her mother and her father. A lie to which her "Shallan" identity is a capstone, which is why the closer she gets to confronting that lie, the more she wants to pull away from it.

And then later, Radiant says to Kaladin at the tavern in Chapter 12:

Quote

“...We’ve found a balance. A year now, without any new personas forming. Except…”

Kaladin raised an eyebrow.

“There are some, half-formed,” Radiant said, turning away. “They wait, to see if the Three really can work. Or if it could crumble, letting them out. They aren’t real. Not as real as I am. And yet. And yet…” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “Shallan wouldn’t wish me to share that much. But as her friend, you should know.”

So-called "Formless" isn't a single persona but a collection of them, in various stages, ready to go as soon as Shallan lets them into the playground of her mind/body, and that is NOT good. For later, when Veil has gone off to play breakneck at other tables, Adolin and Kaladin discuss her (in)stability, and Pattern chips in:

Quote

“She’s fine,” Kaladin said. “She’s found a balance. You’ve heard her explain how she thinks she’s fine now.”

“Like how you tell everyone you’re fine?” Adolin met his eyes. “This isn’t right, how she is. It hurts her. Over this last year I’ve seen her struggling, and I’ve seen hints that she’s sliding—if more slowly now—toward worse depths. She needs help, the kind I don’t know if I can give her.”

Their table hummed. “You are right,” Pattern said. “She hides it, but things are still wrong.”

I would further infer that Radiant knows Shallan's next-level secret, because Radiant exhibited garnet Shardplate at Thaylen Fields. I doubt that's a coincidence, like by saying that Shallan is just projecting that her Radiant persona is an idealized Knight Radiant who therefore has her Plate.

I bet one or more of the "Formless" identities encapsulate what she's been trying to forget, to suppress about herself.

Edited September 25, 2020 by robardin

[Rainier]

15 hours ago, Lemiltock said:

In short, Veil, Radiant and Shallan are indeed distinct people who share a body, and are as distinct as Drehy and Skar, with the obvious restriction of sharing one physical body.

This is not what your abstract says. You seem to have been taking some liberties. 

Quote

Significant differences in EEG coherence were found in comparing DID host and alter personalities, with coherence found to be lower in the alter personalities. No significant differences were found in comparing DID host personalities and controls.

So, what this says is that there's a Host personality, which is not significantly different from a control, and that there are alter personalities, which are significantly different. I'm not sure how you're reading this to mean that the alters are as real as independent people, when it's specifically the host who is compared to the control, not the alters. 

It says more or less the exact opposite of what you're claiming. It's saying that the alters are less real, less coherent, than the either the host personality or the control actors.

If you want to explore some more of the literature, I'd recommend the following:

Quote

Therapeutic Hazards of Treating Child Alters as Real Children in Dissociative Identity Disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), with its typical etiology of extreme, repetitive childhood trauma, usually includes manifestations of childlike ego-states, among others. For many patients, these ego-states, originating with the initial traumatic insults to the psyche in childhood, have been called forth again and again as new situations evoke the earlier trauma. When clinicians, family and friends react to them with warmth, nurturing, and empathy, this may exacerbate the illusion that such ego-states are indeed actual children. This can result in a patient becoming increasingly resistant to working through the issues and experiences by which these ego-states have become fixed, with the risk of therapy reaching an impasse. Attitudes, interventions, and approaches to move past such impasses are addressed.

See, now that sounds like the Shallan we've been reading about.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Rainier

[Karger]

6 minutes ago, Rainier said:

If you want to explore some more of the literature, I'd recommend the following:

I am afraid that that is not a reputable source.

Quote

In 2016, Critical Reviews in Toxicology was accused by the Center for Public Integrity of being a "broker of junk science".^[37]

 

[+Bliev]

I think we are all in agreement that Shallan needs to increase her self awareness and stop lying to herself about her past or who she is.

I think we disagree about whether her DiD is incompatible with self awareness and thus progress as a Radiant.

I believe that it’s not incompatible, that having alters does not preclude her from growing and embracing her truth.

Others seem to think that having alters at all precludes her from awareness, such that dealing with her trauma will necessarily rid her of the need for multiple personalities.

so we agree on the basic premise of progression, but disagree on what that progress will entail of her.

[Rainier]

38 minutes ago, Karger said:

In 2016, Critical Reviews in Toxicology was accused by the Center for Public Integrity of being a "broker of junk science".^[37]

What does Critical Reviews in Toxicology have to do with the article I linked, which was published in Journal of Trauma and Association?

44 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I believe that it’s not incompatible, that having alters does not preclude her from growing and embracing her truth.

...

I think we disagree about whether her DiD is incompatible with self awareness and thus progress as a Radiant.

Yes. I think it takes an incredible feat of self-delusion to partition yourself, and that re-integration is the only thing that could reasonably be understood to be treatment, or success. It seems that this is the current standard, as well. From Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, Treatment Goals and Outcomes:

Quote

Although the DID patient has the subjective experience of having separate identities, it is important for clinicians to keep in mind that the patient is not a collection of separate people sharing the same body. The DID patient should be seen as a whole adult person, with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life. Clinicians working with DID patients generally must hold the whole person (i.e., system of alternate identities) responsible for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities, even in the presence of amnesia or the sense of lack of control or agency over behavior (see Radden, 1996).

Treatment should move the patient toward better integrated functioning whenever possible. In the service of gradual integration, the therapist may, at times, acknowledge that the patient experiences the alternate identities as if they were separate. Nevertheless, a fundamental tenet of the psychotherapy of patients with DID is to bring about an increased degree of communication and coordination among the identities.

...

A desirable treatment outcome is a workable form of integration or harmony among alternate identities. Terms such as integration and fusion are sometimes used in a confusing way. Integration is a broad, longitudinal process referring to all work on dissociated mental processes throughout treatment ... Fusion refers to a point in time when two or more alternate identities experience themselves as joining together with a complete loss of subjective separateness. Final fusion refers to the point in time when the patient’s sense of self shifts from that of having multiple identities to that of being a unified self. Some members of the 2010 Guidelines Task Force have advocated for the use of the term unification to avoid the confusion of early fusions and final fusion.

R. P. Kluft (1993a) has argued that the most stable treatment outcome is final fusion—complete integration, merger, and loss of separateness—of all identity states. However, even after undergoing considerable treatment, a considerable number of DID patients will not be able to achieve final fusion and/or will not see fusion as desirable.

...

Accordingly, a more realistic long-term outcome for some patients may be a cooperative arrangement sometimes called a “resolution”—that is, sufficiently integrated and coordinated functioning among alternate identities to promote optimal functioning. However, patients who achieve a cooperative arrangement rather than final fusion may be more vulnerable to later decompensation (into florid DID and/or PTSD) when sufficiently stressed.

From a diagnostic perspective, there's no reason we should believe Shallan will or is capable of unification. From a narrative perspective, it's clearly where she's heading.

I'll also throw this out there, from the same document:

Quote

The most common structure across the field consists of three phases or stages:

1. Establishing safety, stabilization, and symptom reduction;
2. Confronting, working through, and integrating traumatic memories; and
3. Identity integration and rehabilitation.

Shallan seems to have accomplished phase 1, which was at the end of OB and during the gap year. We've seen her shy away from phase 2 in the early parts of RoW, which means I expect most of this books to deal with 2. It's phase 3 that I think is a prerequisite for the fifth ideal, approaching full self-awareness.

[Greywatch]

Re-integration doesn't seem to be the goal for everyone who has DID, despite what you've linked. Going to videos and sources made by people with the disorder was the most eye-opening experience of understanding what it is like. It seems it's very possible to go get proper therapy, deal with their issues, and still have their alters in the end. I find that more convincing, honestly.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Rainier said:

What does Critical Reviews in Toxicology have to do with the article I linked, which was published in Journal of Trauma and Association?

If you check the top right corner of the link...

[Rainier]

46 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

Re-integration doesn't seem to be the goal for everyone who has DID, despite what you've linked.

Well, no, but then again, these people have DID and aren't the most reliable people. People can choose to be self-destructive, or want to be self-destructive. They can want all kinds of things, or resist things they know are good for them. Furthermore, I'm not talking about everyone who has DID, I'm talking about one character in these novels. What most people want is irrelevant.

Just look at Kaladin in this very chapter. If you ask him what he wants, he wants to be left alone to cry in a heap in his room, but we all correctly identify that as his weakness, not his strength. Some people with depression just wallow in their own misery, too, or commit suicide. It was convincing to have Kaladin consider kill himself is not sufficient reason for it in the narrative, and in fact completely disrupts the narrative. It's convincing to show suicidal tendencies, but it would be a waste of everyone's time if he actually went through with it.
This is what I'm talking about when I've referenced the story serving the DSM instead of the other way around. If the only reason Shallan doesn't achieve unification is because some real-life people don't, then it's a failure as a story and she's a failure as a character.
The recommendation seems pretty clear, though: the therapist's job is to work toward complete unification. I suppose in this case, that's Pattern. 

56 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

It seems it's very possible to go get proper therapy, deal with their issues, and still have their alters in the end. I find that more convincing, honestly.

Everything I linked said that while some people's treatment is less successful than others, we know what success looks like, and we know what failure looks like. It's the phases of treatment I quoted. In fact, from those links I'd say that having alters at the end means you didn't deal with the issues, or at least you're not done dealing with them.

If Shallan resists unification that's a bad thing, and a sign that she's unstable, unreliable, and no longer progressing. What we've seen in RoW tells us Shallan is not getting better, instead she is getting worse. What we've seen from Shallan in RoW is her resisting unification and suppressing memories. This is not a coincidence, it is causal.

Everyone knows Life Before Death and Journey Before Desitnation, but it confuses me that so many people mistake Shallan's Weakness for her Strength.

5 minutes ago, Karger said:

If you check the top right corner of the link...

Then I'll see....what exactly? I think we're looking at different things.

 

[Karger]

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Then I'll see....what exactly? I think we're looking at different things.

Winces.  I meant the left.

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Well, no, but then again, these people have DID and aren't the most reliable people

Neither are artists or basically any willshaper and yet plenty of them live productive healthy useful lives.

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

People can choose to be self-destructive, or want to be self-destructive. They can want all kinds of things, or resist things they know are good for them.

There is a fairly big jump between unreliable and self destructive.

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Just look at Kaladin in this very chapter. If you ask him what he wants, he wants to be left alone to cry in a heap in his room, but we all correctly identify that as his weakness, not his strength

I would not characterize Kaladin's depth of feeling or capacity to be responsible as a weakness nor do I feel that doing so is fair.

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Some people with depression just wallow in their own misery, too, or commit suicide. It was convincing to have Kaladin consider kill himself is not sufficient reason for it in the narrative, and in fact completely disrupts the narrative. It's convincing to show suicidal tendencies, but it would be a waste of everyone's time if he actually went through with it.

It would be tragic.  I don't know if I would consider it a waste of time. 

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

This is what I'm talking about when I've referenced the story serving the DSM instead of the other way around. If the only reason Shallan doesn't achieve unification is because some real-life people don't, then it's a failure as a story and she's a failure as a character.

What if she finds a reasonable self aware concordat between all her personalities?  She might not be able to fully reintegrate.  She also might not want to.

22 minutes ago, Rainier said:

The recommendation seems pretty clear, though: the therapist's job is to work toward complete unification

What @Pathfinder said.  Also I believe what you are quoting is from the 2005 guidelines.  A complete reevaluation of those was made in 2009 and again in 2011.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Karger

[Pathfinder]

28 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Well, no, but then again, these people have DID and aren't the most reliable people. People can choose to be self-destructive, or want to be self-destructive. They can want all kinds of things, or resist things they know are good for them. Furthermore, I'm not talking about everyone who has DID, I'm talking about one character in these novels. What most people want is irrelevant.

Just look at Kaladin in this very chapter. If you ask him what he wants, he wants to be left alone to cry in a heap in his room, but we all correctly identify that as his weakness, not his strength. Some people with depression just wallow in their own misery, too, or commit suicide. It was convincing to have Kaladin consider kill himself is not sufficient reason for it in the narrative, and in fact completely disrupts the narrative. It's convincing to show suicidal tendencies, but it would be a waste of everyone's time if he actually went through with it.
This is what I'm talking about when I've referenced the story serving the DSM instead of the other way around. If the only reason Shallan doesn't achieve unification is because some real-life people don't, then it's a failure as a story and she's a failure as a character.
The recommendation seems pretty clear, though: the therapist's job is to work toward complete unification. I suppose in this case, that's Pattern. 

Everything I linked said that while some people's treatment is less successful than others, we know what success looks like, and we know what failure looks like. It's the phases of treatment I quoted. In fact, from those links I'd say that having alters at the end means you didn't deal with the issues, or at least you're not done dealing with them.

If Shallan resists unification that's a bad thing, and a sign that she's unstable, unreliable, and no longer progressing. What we've seen in RoW tells us Shallan is not getting better, instead she is getting worse. What we've seen from Shallan in RoW is her resisting unification and suppressing memories. This is not a coincidence, it is causal.

Everyone knows Life Before Death and Journey Before Desitnation, but it confuses me that so many people mistake Shallan's Weakness for her Strength.

Then I'll see....what exactly? I think we're looking at different things.

 

I think it is a gross over simplification to state that integration as per the document you referenced is the sole acceptable goal to be successful. To quote the document you reference:

 

Page 117

The recommendations in the Guidelines are not intended to be construed as or to serve as a standard of clinical care. The practice recommendations reflect the state of the art in this field at the present time. The Guidelines are not designed to include all proper methods of care or to exclude other acceptable treatment interventions. Moreover, adhering to the Guidelines will not necessarily result in a successful treatment outcome in every case. Treatment should always be individualized, and clinicians must use their judgment concerning the appropriateness for a particular patient of a specific method of care in light of the clinical data presented by the patient and options available at the time of treatment.

 

TDLR: What is mentioned in your document are suggestions based on their research. Suggestions that are not necessarily applicable in all scenarios and if fully followed, does not guarantee a successful outcome. It also does not preclude other forms of resolutions on a case by case basis. 

 

edit: I sat down and really read through large chunks of this document, and I feel like you jumped right to the "treatments goals and outcome" portion while skipping everything that led up to it, and even then cherry picked the information from that portion. Also some portions you reference is the document itself referencing other clinicians. For example earlier in the document, it references the belief that the physical body does change when the DID switch (think the movie "Split"). That does not mean the document itself is a proponent of such research. It is mentioning it for completeness. 

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Pathfinder

[agrabes]

42 minutes ago, Karger said:

Winces.  I meant the left.

Just to confirm from a third party, there is no reference on his linked site to Critical Reviews in Toxicology.  It seems the publisher Taylor & Francis publishes multiple journals including both the one referenced by Rainier and the one reference by you.  A small number apparently have had controversial content, but there don't seem to be any claims of bad science made against the referenced Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.

 

*edit* Not to be the thread police here or anything (and this isn't really directed in particular at you Karger), but can we avoid another nasty argument about Shallan's condition?  People have really strong feelings about this stuff, which I get.  But, I don't think it's worthwhile for us to have another debate about whether having a mental disorder is a strength or weakness.  Or if people do want to keep discussing it, take it to one of the several threads dedicated to the issue so the rest of us can take a break from it.

For my part, Chapter 12 went a long way toward making me feel better about reading a Shallan with split personalities.  Getting the opportunity to see Adolin's honest opinion about Shallan, and even Shallan's own opinion (through the Radiant personality) helped to provide context for how the book and characters will approach the issue.  I still don't particularly like it and don't really agree with the majority opinion here about Shallan's condition.  But it's not worth the time or the stress to argue about it.  I think Chapter 12 convinced me that Sanderson will write it in a way that will be satisfying to me, even if it's not what I wanted to start out with.

Edited September 25, 2020 by agrabes

[Greywatch]

44 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Well, no, but then again, these people have DID and aren't the most reliable people. People can choose to be self-destructive, or want to be self-destructive. They can want all kinds of things, or resist things they know are good for them. Furthermore, I'm not talking about everyone who has DID, I'm talking about one character in these novels. What most people want is irrelevant.

Just look at Kaladin in this very chapter. If you ask him what he wants, he wants to be left alone to cry in a heap in his room, but we all correctly identify that as his weakness, not his strength. Some people with depression just wallow in their own misery, too, or commit suicide. It was convincing to have Kaladin consider kill himself is not sufficient reason for it in the narrative, and in fact completely disrupts the narrative. It's convincing to show suicidal tendencies, but it would be a waste of everyone's time if he actually went through with it.

This is not a convincing argument.

(1) You've just said everyone with DID is unreliable, pretty much as straightforwardly as I've seen in the entire discussion. Having a dissociative disorder does not mean their wants and goals are irrelevant to the process of healing. If their ability and autonomy to initiate their own healing is taken away, it's not actually going to help them.

(2) It requires me to believe everyone with DID is untrustworthy about what their treatment goals are. People should be trusted to communicate their own experience and their own desires. We don't get to tell people they're doing it wrong if they've achieved stability and happiness and want to continue as they are.

(3) It requires me to dismiss what individuals might say their treatment goals are if they vary even slightly from the quoted text (which is not even the most recent literature on the subject). Sometimes people's goals are "I want to be functional" and that's a perfectly valid goal to work towards, even if they re-evaluate after some time.

(4) It requires me to do this based on a comparison to a fictional character. Comparisons to a fictional character will never be a good example for this type of argument because Kaladin does not actually have real autonomy.

(5) Further to all this, even if Kaladin was a real person, you can't use one person as an example of why ALL people in that category are also doing the same thing as him. And in a category as broad and varied as "people with mental health issues", it's even less valid - Kaladin's management plan would be completely different from Shallan's. "Just look at Kaladin" is an argument completely besides the point.

(6) What you've written here puts every single choice or result that "falls short" of the conclusions you've pulled from your quoted text as being self-destructive. Just because someone's goals might be different from the treatment text does not mean they are being self-destructive. A person can set their goals with a therapist or psychiatrist, and if the mental health worker is good, they can suggest directions, but they will not force a person to walk in a direction that doesn't work for them.

(7) This all entirely ignores the case of what happens when someone does go to therapy, does do it "correctly", and still doesn't re-integrate. This happens.

Quote

This is what I'm talking about when I've referenced the story serving the DSM instead of the other way around. If the only reason Shallan doesn't achieve unification is because some real-life people don't, then it's a failure as a story and she's a failure as a character.

This is not true. It would not be a failure of the story nor would she fail as a character. It would be something that you wouldn't like, but that's not objective reality. Many folks with DID might like it better and find it more realistic.

Whereas if the story needs to resolve every mental health issue exactly according to the highest ideal outlined by the most current processes (which 2004 is not), I would say that would be forcing the story to serve the DSM.

[Karger]

53 minutes ago, agrabes said:

Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.

Yes.  I realized that afterward.  I can't find any references at all to the journal of trauma and dissociation which worries me a bit but your preferences tot avoid a heated argument on this sensitive subject should be noted by everyone(including me).

Edited September 25, 2020 by Karger

[Lemiltock]

5 hours ago, Rainier said:

This is not what your abstract says. You seem to have been taking some liberties. 

So, what this says is that there's a Host personality, which is not significantly different from a control, and that there are alter personalities, which are significantly different. I'm not sure how you're reading this to mean that the alters are as real as independent people, when it's specifically the host who is compared to the control, not the alters. 

It says more or less the exact opposite of what you're claiming. It's saying that the alters are less real, less coherent, than the either the host personality or the control actors.

If you want to explore some more of the literature, I'd recommend the following:

See, now that sounds like the Shallan we've been reading about.

Firstly you do not just read the Abstract nor base your entire view on the paper based on one line in it, the entire paper is only 15 pages long.

To quote a section in the results (again please read the whole paper)

Quote

The hypothesis that there would be differences in average alpha coherence between DID patients, actors, the acted alters and the DID alter Hopper et al.83. Mean alpha coherence values for DID host and alter personalities,actors and acted alters. Statistical comparisons are made between DID host and alter personalities and between actors and acted alters. Personalities was supported. Significant interactions were observed between Group, State and Electrode pairs. DID hosts and controls matched for age and sex recorded similar patterns of coherence. Only for DID alters were significant differences observed in EEG coherence across electrode positions compared to the host personality. Coherence values for professionally acted alters did not resemble those recorded for the corresponding alter personalities. The professional actors were not able to simulate the coherence patterns of the alter personalities indicating that EEG coherence, at least in the present study is not able to be simulated or faked from information relating to age and sex

So the actors, could not simulate alter personalities, despite "acting" the appropriate age. For the host and alters however, the Alpha waves suggested different maturity and trauma levels.

 

Have you read through what you linked? That is not a research paper, it is an opinion piece.

[+robardin]

6 hours ago, Bliev said:

I think we are all in agreement that Shallan needs to increase her self awareness and stop lying to herself about her past or who she is.

I think we disagree about whether her DiD is incompatible with self awareness and thus progress as a Radiant.

I believe that it’s not incompatible, that having alters does not preclude her from growing and embracing her truth.

Others seem to think that having alters at all precludes her from awareness, such that dealing with her trauma will necessarily rid her of the need for multiple personalities.

so we agree on the basic premise of progression, but disagree on what that progress will entail of her.

Hmm, I wouldn't say that "having alters" - at all - precludes her from it. But the specific alters she's got now, I think so.

At least when "Shallan" considers herself (the Shallan personality) "the biggest fake of them all", and Shallan is the originator and boss of "The Three" (she "stuffed them away" in Oathbringer when they resisted or objected to her choosing Adolin over Kaladin), and all three share some kind of awareness that "we" (the three of them, as a semi-joined entity) are suppressing a deeper, even more painful truth than what happened to her parents (i.e., death at her hands).

This "Formless" identity they all find threatening is probably one that would be "master" to all three of them by holding this truth over all of them.

I also think that having someone with such distinct "alters" such that Adolin is literally not with his wife half to 2/3 of the time he's around her by mutual agreement, is pretty messed up, in terms of having a functional and healthy relationship.

As for whether integration is a requirement for a real-life person with DID to be considered healthy - I leave that completely to the experts and the unfortunate patients in question. But since "integration" is usually a target goal in such treatment, I will say that from the POV of reading an epic fantasy narrative, while using first-hand clinical knowledge of DID to add depth to a fantastical version of it in a fictional character is certainly a good idea, worrying about it can't (or shouldn't) take over the narrative.

Shallan herself, and Pattern, and Adolin, and now Kaladin, all spend POV time worrying about her increasingly deepening the reality of Radiant and Veil, and possibly having more identities "on tap", and it's related to her being unable to advance to the Fourth Ideal. That's setting up the tension for the problem.

The resolution has to result in all of them no longer worrying about it, and Shallan reaching the Fourth (and eventually, the Fifth) Ideal.

The obvious way for that to happen is some kind of integration, or at least "subjugation", of the different compartmentalized identities into or under a master one. That may mean Shallan continues to think of "switching gears" into being Veil or Radiant at times, internally, but with all of them being consistent with each other and the master one in the ways that matter.

Or Brandon can find a way to weave in a form of permanently multiple DID into the Shallan Davar character that can be "accepted and moved on" by all involved, including Shalland and her spren, as well as Adolin and everybody else. I cannot imagine what that would be, but hey, he's the storyteller here.

[+Bliev]

5 minutes ago, robardin said:

Or Brandon can find a way to weave in a form of permanently multiple DID into the Shallan Davar character that can be "accepted and moved on" by all involved, including Shalland and her spren, as well as Adolin and everybody else. I cannot imagine what that would be, but hey, he's the storyteller here.

One thing these first few chapters have definitely done for me is make me excited to see her journey and the choices he decides to make. I love when I feel there are multiple paths that could reasonably be taken and be satisfied with the story. I feel like it’s going to be really well written.

[Subvisual Haze]

5 hours ago, Rainier said:

What does Critical Reviews in Toxicology have to do with the article I linked, which was published in Journal of Trauma and Association?

Yes. I think it takes an incredible feat of self-delusion to partition yourself, and that re-integration is the only thing that could reasonably be understood to be treatment, or success. It seems that this is the current standard, as well. From Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, Treatment Goals and Outcomes:

From a diagnostic perspective, there's no reason we should believe Shallan will or is capable of unification. From a narrative perspective, it's clearly where she's heading.

I'll also throw this out there, from the same document:

Shallan seems to have accomplished phase 1, which was at the end of OB and during the gap year. We've seen her shy away from phase 2 in the early parts of RoW, which means I expect most of this books to deal with 2. It's phase 3 that I think is a prerequisite for the fifth ideal, approaching full self-awareness.

fyi The guidelines linked here are the leading current clinical guidelines for the management of DID.  

[go_go_gragdet]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

Yes.  I realized that afterward.  I can't find any references at all to the journal of trauma and dissociation which worries me a bit but your preferences tot avoid a heated argument on this sensitive subject should be noted by everyone(including me).

I have no dog in this fight, but here are a few leads, if you "seek the truth, wherever it may be, whoever may hold it":

It is this organization's official journal.

Here's the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_the_Study_of_Trauma_and_Dissociation.

See this page for the editor's bio and editorial board members: https://www.isst-d.org/publications/journal-of-trauma-dissociation/

There's also this page from the publisher (see the menu on the left to get more information on the journal): https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=wjtd20

Here is a Google Scholar list of papers citing the "Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision" discussed above :  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=8514000691239885248&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en

This list would be a start to see who cited the guidelines, for what purpose; were the guidelines approved, criticized, etc.

See also: a Google Scholar list of related articles: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:wJnIAoXOJ3YJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

[Pathfinder]

1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

fyi The guidelines linked here are the leading current clinical guidelines for the management of DID.  

Don't know if this is in reference to me but just in case to clarify:

I am not calling into question the quality of the guidelines themselves nor the research done. I was only stating that it was being misrepresented due to the portions quoted and how it was referenced. Hopefully that helps. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Pathfinder

[go_go_gragdet]

On 22/09/2020 at 3:53 PM, Bliev said:

And I do find it a bit interesting that Kal so easily dismisses Maya as if she is unimportant, even after spending all that time around her in Shadesmar. Yes, she's "dead" but the spren screamed all the time, and even fought for Adolin! Unless he missed that part? Seems weird that Kaladin, of all people, would be so callous and dismissive of Adolin's connection with her.

I plan to do a re-read of the Shadesmar section of OB to gather evidence of Kaladin noticing (or not noticing) Maya physically defending Adolin during the fight with the Fused. It would indeed seem cold of Kaladin to dismiss her like this if he did notice her intervention (and even more so if Adolin told him about what happened during the battle of Thaylen Field (i.e.: the sword telling Adolin her name, him summoning her in fewer than ten heartbeats, her seemingly warning him of danger despite being a "dead" spren, etc.).  In the meantime, I choose to chalk Kaladin's response up to him being used to hanging out with extremely eager proto-Windrunners who feel horribly socially excluded when unable to draw stormlight or bond a spren. It could make sense for Kaladin to think Adolin might feel the same way as the bridgemen (and Adolin did feel this way, at least for a while, as he told Shallan on at least two occasions that he felt somewhat "beneath" Radiants). Thus, Kaladin's reaction was to explain away Adolin's "failure" to bond a spren by blaming not a personal shortcoming, but his insistance on keeping his shardblade.

I'm trying my best to make it make sense, ha ha ha!

Edited September 25, 2020 by go_go_gragdet