Co-consciousness As A Term / Academic Equivalent?

[theshadowoftheliving]

My therapist used the term co-conscious with me last week. (as in- I don't really have it).

I'm familiar with this term because I've stumbled across it over and over. But now, looking for reading and information on it from a more academic perspective (ie not this site, as wonderful as it is, or personal blogs, etc), I'm stumbling. I can't find the term anywhere in academia.

Am I missing something? Does anyone know of an academic equivalent to this term?

 

[joeylittle]

This is an article from 2011 that does a good job of summarizing some of the research available to that point around DID, memory formation, and treatment: Dissociative Identity Disorder: Overview and Current Research

Some useful quotes (all bolding added for emphasis)

Because of the intense feelings experienced as a result of trauma, individuals with DID may behave in ways that facilitate exploitation or are dangerous to themselves or others. Thus, a primary goal for treatment is to manage these behaviors and teach impulse control with some form of cognitive or behavioral therapy. Even when amnesia exists between alters, therapists should hold the client responsible for behaviors of all alters. Therapists should also realize that some clients do not desire fusion or integration of their personalities. In this case, the goal of treatment would involve working towards cooperative functioning of alters.

The thing to notice here is the terminology - fusion I take to describe merging, integration to describe co-consciousness, and co-operative functioning to describe something that relates more to co-awareness; acknowledgement without necessarily sharing consciousness.

Other studies have discovered findings that are relevant to the relationship between trauma and memory in DID. A case study investigating the neural correlates of switching between alters used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study changes in the brain during switching. The results indicated that during switching to the alternate personality, the client’s bilateral hippocampus was inhibited, as well as the right parahippocampal gyrus, right medial temporal lobe, globus pallidus, and substantia nigra. However, during transition to the host personality, the right hippocampus demonstrated evidence of increased activation, with no inhibition in any brain structures (Tsai, Condi, Wu, & Chang, 1999). These findings contribute to an understanding of amnesia between alters, since regions of the brain involved in memory are either inhibited or activated.

Support for the factual understanding of lack of co-consciousness is indirectly an explanation for what co-consciousness itself is.

Other research supports the idea that alters develop to protect the host from unpleasant thoughts and memories involving trauma and abuse. Autobiographical memories may differ between alter personalities, allowing the host to retain positive memories while alters contain negative traumatic memories (Bryant, 2005). A study investigating directed forgetting found that “dissociative patients showed directed forgetting between states, but not within the same identity state” (p. 241). This study clarifies the mechanism and function of memory in various dissociative states and helps explain why trauma might result in the development of alters. Pushing threatening material out of consciousness can then be facilitated by a switch from one state of consciousness to another (Elzinga, Phaf, Ardon, & van Dyck, 2003).

Bear in mind, these are studies that support hypotheses, using a very limited data set. However, that's where much of mental health research is right now.

I also recommend reading this study: Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Controversial Diagnosis, which is rather dense, but gets more into investigating trauma, memory, personality formation, and traumatic amnesia.

This study is a very important read, I think, in terms of looking at the data that challenges dissociative amnesia across DID identities: Inter-Identity Autobiographical Amnesia in Patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder

While it does not state anything other than an inability to prove true lack of co-consciousness (and inability to prove does not mean it doesn't exist), it delves deeper into the specifics of how traumatic memory works in an integrative way, and illustrates how to think about memory in some interesting ways as well.

From the study:

Indicating that autobiographical memory might be a prerequisite for compartmentalization, two case studies directly addressed autobiographical memory performance in DID, and both provided evidence for autobiographical amnesia. To illustrate, Bryant examined a 31-year old DID patient in two conditions: As the predominant (“host”) identity of the DID patient, and as a nine-year-old trauma identity claiming awareness of abuse of which the host identity was unaware...Although the data from the two case studies suggest autobiographical amnesia in DID, they have important shortcomings. First, that one identity does not report certain memories does not necessarily mean that these memories are truly inaccessible. Failing to mention a memory does not necessarily mean that the person is unable to recall it. True amnesia would entail an inability to recall these memories, whereas unwillingness might suggest malingering or factitious behavior. Second, each study examined only a single DID patient.

At the very least, our data are inconsistent with the definition of dissociative amnesia in DID as entailing separate inter-identity memory systems divided by impermeable amnesic barriers. The DID patients exhibited memory transfer across identities even though they did not realize it.

Which suggests that it's possible that achieving co-consciousness means nothing more than realizing (identifying) information that is already present.

These are very fine distinctions. But, if you are looking for a more detailed analysis/understanding of the dissociative event itself, traumatic memory, and what is and is not understood fully in terms of scientific studies...these links should help at least get you started.

You will not find anything that presumes the term co-consciousness, I don't think - that's a concept adopted by the dissociative identity community as a way to describe awareness/non-awareness in alter states. Studies will only talk about memory, memory retrieval, autobiographical memory vs neutral memory, traumatic amnesia, and identity states. Even the term 'alter' is not as commonly found inside the research. 'Alternate identity states' will yield you more search results than 'alternate personalities', in terms of search queries for info on DID studies.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

Thanks, @joeylittle.

I think my issue is that all of this references DID ... Which as of yet, I haven't been diagnosed with. I'm valiantly attempting to find it referenced in relationship to anything other than DID and I'm coming up short, which is scary.

 

[whiteraven]

The only other term I've seen in either lay or professional literature is co-awareness.

 

[joeylittle]

Which as of yet, I haven't been diagnosed with. I'm valiantly attempting to find it referenced in relationship to anything other than DID and I'm coming up short, which is scary.

Well....I don't think that's scary - it's just that it's a concept that relates to a form of dissociation where the individual has one or more alternate persona.

Do you have dissociative amnesia? It's possible to have that without having any loss of identity - you can lose time, forget things without it meaning that you have alters.

But, I don't think you deal in co-consciousness unless you have at least one alter. And there's not such a spectrum of diagnoses that account for more than one which acknowledges alters (DID).

Can you explain more what is scary for you? Do you think that you don't have alters? I'm not sure why you'd be asking the question about co-consciousness, otherwise.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

Can you explain more what is scary for you? Do you think that you don't have alters? I'm not sure why you'd be asking the question about co-consciousness, otherwise.

I'm scared because I'm of more than one mind (metaphorically speaking) as to whether or not DID fits with me and whether or not I can stand having that label attached.

And I have no idea if I have alters or not. Flat out no idea whatsoever. I know I have parts. But everyone has parts. So I don't know if they are just parts like everyone else, or a little more developed than everyone else, or if they are actual "alters" in the proper sense. I'm neither denying nor confirming; I just don't know, I just don't know.

I'm asking about co-consciousness because it was a word that my therapist used last session, and I'm desperately trying to convince myself that she couldn't have possibly been referencing the presence of alters.

I think I have dissociative amnesia, but it is hard to know what you forgot if you can't remember it.

 

[joeylittle]

Thanks, I understand better now.

Have you tried carrying a sound-activated recording device? It might be a way for you to go over what happened that day, and see if you remember being present for all the events. I've read other people's accounts of how difficult it can be to recognize if you've got dissociative amnesia.

You can't have DID without the presence of a distinct identity from your own. That identity needs to be differentiated from your 'main' or core identity in a number of ways. (The language used in the DSM is "two or more identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the environment and self.")

You also can't have DID without also experiencing amnesia in some form - this can be forgetting traumatic event(s), and/or important personal information and/or normal daily occurrences.

If your therapist believes you have DID and is actually qualified to make that diagnosis, they should be able to talk you through why they see it that way.

But if you cannot report amnesia, then (in my opinion) it's putting the cart before the horse to talk about co-consciousness and how to achieve it.

(Unless your therapist has experience of your amnesia that they can verify; even then, they'd need to talk you through that).

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

I'm having one of those days were I'm just unsure of everything and afraid I'm making things up.

My memory is terrible. At any given time I don't even know what time of day it is, or what I did an hour before or a day before or a year before. But, usually, I can back track enough to get at least a fuzzy and hazy recollection of what I did during whatever time period I'm thinking of, or convince myself it wasn't important to remember so not to worry about it.

There are times when I meet people who know me and I don't know who they are. Sometimes I can't recognize people. Sometimes I can't understand when people speak. But maybe that's just a bad memory, or stress.

Very rarely, I'll "wakeup" in the middle of things and have no idea where I am or what I am doing. But even then I seem to be able to backtrack enough to put the pieces together, eventually.

This ability to backtrack and piece things together makes me nervous to call it amnesia.

I just don't know.

 

[joeylittle]

This ability to backtrack and piece things together makes me nervous to call it amnesia.

Medically, I believe you're correct - that's not amnesia.

So the challenging bit is to figure out if there are things happening that you have no recollection of. I'm sorry you're going through this, it's a complicated thing to sort out. My best (and only) advice is to try recording, and see if there is something you capture that you do not have any recollection of, nor does it prompt you to remember.

 

[shimmerz]

Experientially, co-conscious, for me, manifests in a way that DID does not. I have, literally, a voice in my head while my body is acting in a traumatically reactive way, that is encouraging me in a different way or, back before I dealt with the inner critic, damned me for being so 'stupid' for acting out.

I think the easiest was that I can describe it is that my mind and body are doing two different things, but there is a narrative attached (therefore an awareness) while I am reacting and that is aware of everything that is being said, everything that is happening to me.

Having said that, dissociative stuff lies on a spectrum. Depending on the trigger, it is possible that there is a sense of awareness with some things and not others. In other words, you may be highly dissociative if say, you need to deal with an authority figure and they are a trigger, but not DID like if you are threatened by an argument that takes place in your general area. I don't think it is as black and white as 'only DID' and 'only co-conscious'.

Again, just my experience - nothing academic about it.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

So, after a night of sleep and a little clearer head: What is the difference between amnesia and in knowing that a different part probably remembers? Is amnesia just relevant if ALL parts can't remember?

I know that, so much of the time, when I'm home and acting like a small child, I can't remember things. Stare at to-do lists and get confused, try to read and I can't understand the technical jargon, remember things about the past that feel really important. But I also know that, while I can't remember anything for work and couldn't possibly show up and work that way (I just wouldn't have the skills), when I cross over into my competent work-self, all those things I can't remember will come back. But, the work-version doesn't have access to the memories that the sad-little-kid-version does. But I've come to trust that if I get back into the other headspace, the memories will appear.

So I don't call it amnesia because I'm sure that the information is in there somewhere and I just can't access it at the moment. But isn't that also the definition of structural dissociation?

And where is the line between pure amnesia and remembering things because I've worked out an insane set of coping tools for writing things down, checking off basic tasks each day so that I remember to do them, setting alarms and checking clocks and dates and times?

When I meet people I don't know (who know me) I spend the whole conversation trying to memorize their face and pay attention to context clues. Then, I look them up on facebook or other networking sites later, trying to piece together information and pictures until I figure out who they must have been, and then that will usually prompt a memory about meeting them elsewhere at another time (and it's always obvious from the conversations that I've met them before, as they know so much about me). Is that backtracking to remember? or is that just good sleuthing skills?

I don't want to call it amnesia, but, like always, I'm scared that my ability to function in the world is masking a serious problem. I know that other people don't live like this or have to put so much energy into just staying afloat.

 

[shimmerz]

But, the work-version doesn't have access to the memories that the sad-little-kid-version does.

I think you even knowing this means that it isn't amnesia. I would call it more compartmentalization of parts.