he child dissociates, or breaks the connection between his/her thoughts, feelings, and his/her very identity. The child becomes like a hidden observer (Alexander, et al. 94) who does not have to deal with the pain or fear of the attack. All thoughts and memories of the abuse are psychologically separated from the child. After repeated abuse, this dissociation becomes reinforced. If the child is good at it, he/she will use it as a defense mechanism in any situation that he/she perceives as threatening, and different personalities begin to develop. Trance-like behavior in children has been found to be the single best predictor of childhood dissociative identity disorder (Carlson, et al. 118).It has been documented that disassociative identity disorder can only develop during childhood, usually between the ages of 3 and 9. There is no adult onset disassociative identity disorder, due to the fact that ...only children have sufficient flexibility (and vulnerability) to respond to trauma by breaking their still coalescing self into different, dissociated parts (Rainbow House 2). It has also been found that only children who are highly susceptible to hypnosis are able to accomplish disassociative behavior. This is because a hypnotic state is very similar to the trance-like states that the children enter into, so if the children can be easily hypnotized, they can also easily go into trances. Others respond to their abuse in a more typical fashion.Children with disassociative identity disorder may have several different alters or personalities, each with its own distinct characteristics and strengths. These alters become dominant at different times according to the outside stressors, but ...there are usually only 3 to 6 alters who are particularly active...on any given day (Rainbow House 3). When active, these alters may or may not be apparent to observers (In fact, the personality differences in children with disassociative identity ...
