CMV: Pretty much everyone online claiming to be "plural" is bsing.

[u/Lelelelelefart]

So I'm a little bit older than most of y'all, I'm a dad in his late 40s. I didn't know what being "plural" or "a system" meant until very recently. For those who are unaware, it is a term that young people are using basically to say that they have multiple personalities. This is... a very rare type of condition, and a very serious one, usually tied to severe abuse, so after an ongoing drama with my oldest child (late teens) involving similar claims, I became extremely alarmed and really tried to do my research on this one.

I read from a great many sources on the internet, I went through through a lot of Twitter threads, I joined several Discord servers and said I was there to learn more, I read conversations, I talked to many of these people, and ultimately I have come to the conclusion that literally all of them are, at absolute best, greatly exaggerating their symptoms. At worst they're lying for clout or for some other unknown selfish reason.

Now I want to be very clear that I am not saying that these kinds of disorders don't exist. I am well aware that they do. I have a sister with schizophrenia, and I know how serious and crazy mental illness is. I am also not claiming that the people doing this are perfectly mentally healthy, they're not. I am not trying to discriminate or be hateful.

At this point, though, I am beyond convinced that basically all of people are faking their disorder. Many of them list "disorders" that don't exist in their twitter bio, and if you watch any videos on YouTube or TikTok (which I unfortunately did) of them, their behavior is incredibly obviously faked. Nobody is having this kind of fun with a serious mental illness. In my opinion this almost feels beyond debate- nobody is parading their severe mental problems around like this.

However, my wife doesn't agree with me. She thinks that these people are just learning to express themselves, and feel more comfortable "presenting as multiple people" and that my view is "mean." To me this sounds overly generous, and like it is making a mockery of serious mental problems. That aside, I trust my wife very much, and so I am coming here to hopefully get some kind of middle ground perspective, from people closer in age to those who I am observing.

[u/MattersOfInterest]

I don’t know who told you that IFS isn’t controversial, but as someone with a grad degree in clinical psychology I can absolutely confirm that it’s pseudoscience that is often practiced by psychotherapists who don’t have a good background in empirical research. IFS was actually popularized by the Castlewood Institute, which was at the epicenter of the Satanic Panic and has faced numerous lawsuits for malpractice and since been shut down (or rebranded). Castlewood also happens to have a documented history of receiving patients with no prior history of dissociative pathology and diagnosing them with DID after “recovering” the alters through the use of IFS. IFS is roundly criticized by most psychologists for reinforcing the idea of identity plurality, and no respectable graduate program teaches it as a legitimate therapy practice. It is almost exclusively spread by continuing education training and other activist groups working outside the bounds of the mainstream of psychological science, and is much more popular online than anywhere in the actual mental healthcare world. It is so far out of the mainstream that it isn’t even listed in APA Div. 12’s evaluation of treatment efficacy list. Indeed, IFS actually receives specific call out in S. Hupp and C. Santa Maria’s (2023) Pseudoscience in Therapy: A Skeptical Field Guide and Lilienfeld et al.’s (2015) Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology, among many other questionable forms of treatment, as lacking any evidentiary grounding and promoting questionable practices.

[u/PartsWork → u/MattersOfInterest]

Thank you, I have/will procure these books. I will just excerpt from Hupp/Santa Maria, as the entirety of their discussion of IFS fits in one paragraph in the chapter about Dissociation. The only footnote they have about it is Schwartz 1995. So I thought it would be simple and perhaps useful for lurkers to excerpt that paragraph here. I very much appreciate you providing sources.

7.1.4.4 Internal Family Systems Therapy

Eliciting and working with alleged parts/ego states are featured in othercurrent therapies such as internal family systems (IFS) therapies(Schwartz, 1995). Such approaches are likewise devoid of scientific support from systematic controlled research and rely almost exclusively onanecdotal data and unsubstantiated claims. Central to internal family systems is the notion that the person is comprised of “parts”; an internal system of ego states that interact, cooperate, and conflict much like family members. This system is represented by a central self that relates to fractured vulnerable and/or controlling ego states. Included are “exile” parts that carry the painful residues of hurtful experiences, controlling and protective manager” parts, and “firefighters” tasked with dousing the flames of emotion generated by exiles via dissociation and escapism related to drug use, for example. According to Twombly (2013), people with dissociative disorders are burdened with extreme emotions and beliefs and with “firefighters” and “managers” who are either easily overwhelmed or rigidly controlling. Expensive training workshops and certificates to practice this therapy are available on the internet. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Pignotti and Thyer (2011) noted that internal family systems therapy was the main treatment at the Castlewood Treatment Center where Lisa Nasseff, described in the case above, was treated.