stout2 - 1 Michael Lorberg Mr Jehle Expository Writing...

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Michael Lorberg
Mr
.
Jehle
Expository Writing 101
September 30
,
2007
“Psychological Dissociation: The Ruiner of Self-Knowledge?”
Psychological dissociation
,
or
,
divided awareness
,
is defined as the psychological
phenomenon in which the mind separates from the body for a period of time determined by the
severity of the dissociation
.
It ranges from the ordinary daydream that lasts a few minutes to
,
“in
heinous circumstances…much longer” (Stout 587
.
) Martha Stout
,
author of The Myth of Sanity:
Divided Consciousness
,
argues in her book that psychological dissociation is
,
in fact
,
not as
much of a phenomenon as most might think
.
Quite contrarily
,
she argues that it is an all too
common everyday occurrence
.
The spectrum of psychological dissociation can be defined on one end by distraction
,
the
most benign condition that encompasses daydreaming and escape through narratives and various
mediums (such as films
,
books
,
music
,
etc
.
)
,
to dissociation on the other end
,
the most extreme
type and a psychological condition in which one’s “self” could leave the corporeal body for
upwards of hours at a time
,
sometimes leaving the victim even wholly oblivious of the fact as the
body carries on day to day tasks entirely independently
.
While distraction is a harmless
voluntary process in which one can relax in for a short period of time
,
dissociation is not
.
It is

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highly unpredictable
,
and actually quite life threatening
.
Because the mind is not present during
dissociation, incredibly enough, neither is pain, and presumably, any other emotion.
I don’t want to do die because I can’t feel anything. I don’t want to end up dead
because I can’t feel what’s going in my body, or because I can’t tell the difference
between that psychosomatic pain I’m always getting in my chest and some
honest-to-God heart attack. (Stout 597.)
One of Stout’s patients, elucidated on further below, was saying in of her therapy