The Stranger in the Mirror: The Hidden Epidemic

by Maxine Schnall and Marlene Steinberg

Book Overview

You peer into the mirror and have trouble recognizing yourself.
You can't remember if you actually did something or only thought you did.
You feel as if you're going through the motions of life.

These are all symptoms of dissociation--a fragmented state of consciousness involving feelings of disconnection and amnesia that affects 30 million individuals in North America alone. The surprising truth revealed in The Stranger in the Mirror,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060195649
• ISBN13: 9780060195649
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Self-care is for everyone.

Everyone dissociates. When you drive home on auto pilot and don't remember the trip, when you walk into a room and can't remember what you went in there for, when someone is in an accident and goes into an altered state where they keep functioning even though injured until they're safe again, getting help and can experience the pain. This books describes the author's diagnostic tool for evaluating dissociative experiences. She has developed a matrix of five categories of dissociation and five levels of severity. She stresses that if the dissociation is causing problems for an individual, the condition responds well to appropriate treatment no matter what the severity. One goal is to de-stigmatize persistent dissociative conditions and to remind all professionals that everyone should be treated with respect, no matter what behaviour they exhibit. No one's personality should be treated as a freak show. Another gaol is to encourage everyone to take care of themselves, to nurture their inner environment for a healthier life and she provides some great ideas on how to do that. I believe the author accomplishes these goals. This is a very readable, fascinating, helpful book.

Everyone Should Read this book!!!

This book is fantastic. Both my husband & I have read it and now my sister and father are reading it. As Steinberg & Schnall explain, there is a continuum of dissociation. Everyone has some mild form of dissociation and at the other end of the continuum is DID (formerly MPD). I have severe dissociation but I don't know for sure if I have DID. My husband and I live with this every day. As hard as I have tried to explain the illness to my husband, for whatever reason(s), it was not clear. Finally, I was able to go to the library one day and borrow this book. He read it and then I read it. My husband & I tend to read completely dissimilar books but this book was readable, understandable, and enlightening to both of us. For people with dissociative disorders (not necessarily DID), this book helps you realize that you're not alone. For anyone who interacts with people (i.e. pretty much the whole world) this book should be mandatory reading. You never know why someone is reacting the way they are to a circumstance. This book shows you how to be open minded and understanding of other people's idiosyncracies without needing to understand why they have the idiosyncracy. The world would be a much calmer, more pleasant place if we all had the compassion that this book helps bring out.

Powerhouse of a Book -- a MUST READ!

This book blows the lid off of the widespread misunderstanding and misinformation out there about a common disorder that we all share to some degree or another. If you've ever been in an accident, or ever been the victim of any other type of high-stress event, you've experienced dissocation as the defense mechanism that allows you to cope with the attednant trauma. Reading this book will help you identify and understand the symptoms you experienced. Dr. Steinberg's research actually reveals that even the most normal, well-adjusted people dissociate on a regular basis as a defense mechanism. Problems arise only when it is taken to an extreme.Dissociation is simply a protective response hard-wired into our psychological makeup that allows us to cope with high stress situations and events. This book makes it clear that the fact that you dissociate doesn't mean you are turning into Sybil. The self-test included in the book helps you understand this. Based on years of research by an acclaimed figure in the field, the clear and lucid writing make a complex and difficult subject accessible to a general audience. The case histories included in the text make for fascinating reading, and allow the reader to see how therapy actually works in a person's life.It's almost criminal how many people are misled, even by mental health professionals, about the nature and significance of dissociation: it seems that many people being treated for anxiety and depression actually suffer from severe dissociation. This very informative book makes a significant contribution to the general understanding of this subject, and everyone everyone who wants to be in the know about themselves should read it immediately!

Helps Create Awareness of a Common Mental Disorder!

Chances are that you will spend time with someone who suffers from dissociation today. Do you know how to help them? Do you even know who they are? If you are like me, the answer was "no" to both questions before reading this excellent, important book. Dissociation is defined by the authors as "a state of fragmented consciousness involving amnesia, a sense of unreality and feeling, of being disconnected from oneself or one's environment." One of the extreme forms that this disorder can take is as someone who exhibits multiple personalities. If you ever saw the movie, Three Faces of Eve, that is what is being described here in extreme form. Most people with this condition are experiencing these personality complexities inside their minds, and the external manifestation can appear to be absent-mindedness or a strange reaction to common occurrences. The actual diagnosis of this mental condition needs to be done by a trained clinician, but there are helpful questionnaires in the book to help you determine whether such a clinician should be sought for you or someone you know. You need to have pretty broad-based and severe symptoms before you have this disorder. Based on broadscale survey research led Dr. Steinberg, it is estimated that 14 percent of the population in North America have this condition. The sufferer usually goes untreated or is treated for a symptom of the disorder, such as depression or panic attacks. The condition is often misdiagnosed, as well, as schizophrenia. Dissociation "is a healthy adaptive defense used almost universally by people in response to overwhelming stress or life-threatening danger." So, if you've experienced some aspects of dissociation, that's good. What's bad is if these characteristics are present all of the time in extreme ways. I thought the questionnaires were unusually good at differentiating normal, healthy dissociation from the qualities of this disorder.The book contains three lengthy case histories that show in detail how the disorder can be manifested, and how difficult it is to diagnose and treat. Many mental health professionals will benefit from reading this book, as encouragement for bringing their knowledge up-to-date. When Dr. Steinberg began her research, it was thought that dissociation was relatively uncommon, yet it is reaching epidemic proportions.The incidence of dissociation is often related to childhood abuse. In relating this information, the authors expose some common myths about childhood abuse. One of the most important is the belief that children would remember such occasions. In fact, the amnesia of dissociation often prevents these memories from surfacing. This abuse most often occurs in alcoholic households. The abuse effects can be complicated by having occurred involving more than one generation in a family. If you are like me and are fascinated by reports of alien abductions, out-of-body experiences, and near-death experiences, you will be interested th

Don't Miss This Book

This a remarkable book that you can't afford to miss reading if you have any questions about what makes us tick psychologically. It's beautifully written,provocative, fascinating, and extremely readable,and makes complex concepts easy to understand, particularly for people who have hidden parts of themselves. The three in-depth case histories alone are worth the price. They read like suspenseful, incredibly intimate detective stories, and make you feel as if you're a fly on the wall of the psychiatrist's office. You come away from them uplifted by the power of the human mind to save itself. If you liked Sybil or The Three Faces of Eve or even Nurse Betty, you'll love this book.The self-tests to rate your symptoms are also eye-opening. I found out that I do dissociate at times--zone out when I'm bored or feel as if I'm outside myself watching myself at times, but that it's perfectly normal in my case. But it was shocking to learn that many people who do have a dissociative problem are being mistreated for depression,attention-deficit disorder, panic attacks, and mood swings--which is probably why they're not getting better.The Chapter on "Men and Dissociation" does a lot to explain why some men are one person when they're drunk, and another when they're sober. And the "Aliens From Inner Space" Chapter on past lives, near-death experiences, and UFO abductions is the first I've ever read that gives a convincing medical explanation for these phenomena.I bought this book because I was puzzled by the behavior of a close friend who, I now realize, is a dissociative. She read it, too, and was helped by it enormously. If you could give six stars to a book, this one would be it.