Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a rare phenomenon in which individuals desire the amputation of fully functioning limbs. BIID is described as the disparity between an individual’s perception of their body and the actual structure of their body (Bayne & Levy, 2005). Other psychological disorders have been linked to BIID, including Gender Identity Disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. The neurological origins of BIID are unknown at this time, and treatment of this condition through elective amputation is highly controversial. Arguments for and against elective amputation will be discussed, as well as other possible treatments.
Body Integrity Identity Disorder
“John first took leftover prescription painkillers and numbed his left foot in ice water to reduce impending pain. He then buried his foot in dry ice for six hours to induce severe frostbite and force surgeons to operate” (Adams, 2007).
The previous insert from William Lee Adams’ article, Amputee Wannabes, describes a 33-year-old man’s wish for amputation of his foot. There was nothing physically or medically wrong with this limb; John only stated that he did not feel comfortable with his own body and felt as though his foot was not a part of him. John’s leg was amputated above the knee, and he went on to describe that the operation resolved his anxiety and allowed him to be at ease in his own body (Adams, 2007).
What causes someone to desire amputation of a healthy limb? This desire was first reported by French surgeon Jean-Joseph Sue in 1785 (Lawrence, 2006). However, this delusion only began to receive public attention in the early 2000s due to the increase in documented cases. Soon thereafter, a psychiatric condition titled Body Integrity Identity D...
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...hysical versus representational deficits of body integrity. Experimental Brain Research, 204, 315-326.
Jotkowitz, A. & Zivotofsky, A. (2009). Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the limits of autonomy. The American Journal of Bioethics-Neuroscience, 9, 55-56.
Lawrence, A. (2006). Clinical and theoretical parallels between desire for limb amputation and Gender Identity Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35, 263-278.
Muller, S. (2009). Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) – is the amputation of healthy limbs ethically justified? The American Journal of Bioethics-Neuroscience, 9, 36-43.
Ryan, C.J. (2009). Out on a limb: The ethical management of Body Integrity Identity Disorder. Neuroethics, 2, 21-33.
Sorene, E.D., et. al. (2006). Self-amputation of a healthy hand: a case of Body Integrity Identity Disorder. Journal of Hand Surgery, 31, 593-595.
His aim was to in-crease amputees’ confidence in the use of their prosthetics and their mental attitude. He recruited 100 volunteer amputees and put them through the programme. The results sug-gested that he achieved his aim he noted improvements in the physical and mental well-being of the volunteers. They also gained confidence in using their prosthetic which aided their recovery. Their mental well-being was particularly important as it was noted that a positive mental attitude and acceptance of the prosthetic resulted in a quicker recovery time (Dillingham, T.R., 1998).
The only logical conclusion to derive from this observation is that what we consider to be ourselves is not our bodies. As a result, an individual’s personal identity cannot be rooted in just his or her body, unlike what body theorists would like to
“Amputees by Choice” written by Bayne and Levy, conists of an unusual topic. Bayne and Levy examine and discuss two basic questions. The first question they look into is the motivations people to have a perfectly healthy limb amputated? The other question concerns what circumstances would a doctor comply with a patients’ wish to get a limb amputated. Along with the other two questions, Levy and Bayne discuss other erratic cases involving the amputation of one’s limbs. More specifically, Levy and Bayne attempt to define and analyze Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). This disorder occurs when people think incorrectly about their healthy limbs. In addition to BDD, Apotemnophiles are sexually attracted to amputees, and are sexually excited by the fact that maybe becoming an amputee as well.
Resection was a process that “involved cutting open the limb, sawing out the damaged bone, and then closing the incision” (Jones, 1). Resection allows the patient to keep his limbs but it requires a great ordeal of time and skill. This also contributed to the common practice of amputation during the war. But there were cases where surgeons did use this method. Terry J. Jones said in his NY Times article, “resections were used more frequently after surgeons learned that amputations had a much higher mortality rate” (Jones, 1). In another article by Corydon Ireland, it describes Mitchell Adam’s, a Harvard lecturer, grandfather who served as a volunteer surgeon during the Civil War. In the article, “Adams was not a champion of hasty amputations, but argued for excision and other limb-saving measures. And he describes the everyday pressures of a country practice in Framingham, Mass” (Ireland, 1). This meant that not all surgeons at the time only wanted to amputate but strived for alternate methods. This new knowledge shows that some surgeons were more dedicated to thinking about the well-being of their patients than others and this opens up to other possibilities that may have occurred during the war. This allows an image to come to mind of a surgeon diligently operating on a soldier with care and compassion. However, even though there may be many possibilities, we can’t truly know every event that occurs during a
...has put these people there for a reason. You always think your problems are bad until you go and see others. These doctors make it possible for children to have all of their limbs. We have been blessed by this hospital.” (Rudder).
In conclusion, keeping Gender Dysphoria as a diagnosis aids the most vulnerable population in seeking treatment and care, options, protection, and guidance. As society and medicine moves forward, we may be able to steer away from mental health bias and general discrimination towards non-conformity, but for now it is important to protect the patients who are helped by the diagnosis. Gender Dysphoria currently allows patients to be treated under their insurance, have access to care, and fight for their
The ego lies within the conscious and unconscious realm and seeks to satisfy the id’s
Dissociative identity disorder, a condition that has plagued and altered the minds of those who were diagnosed for many years, represents the condition in which an individual displays multiple personalities that overpower his or her behavior around others and even alone. Such personalities or identities can have staggering differences between them even being characterized by a disparate gender, race, or age. One of the sides of them can even be animal-like and display feral qualities. Also, the disorder severs the connection between the victim’s sense of identity, emotions, actions, and even memories from their own consciousness. The cause for this is known to be a very traumatic experience that the person had gone through previously and fails to cope with it, thus they dissociate themselves from the memory in order to keep their mental state in one piece. All these results from the disorder do not begin to tell of the rest of the horrors that gnaw away at the affected human.
The two controversial topics discussed below share a single goal: to enhance the quality of life of a human individual. The first topic, transhumanism, is a largely theoretical movement that involves the advancement of the human body through scientific augmentations of existing human systems. This includes a wide variety of applications, such as neuropharmacology to enhance the function of the human brain, biomechanical interfaces to allow the human muscles to vastly out-perform their unmodified colleagues, and numerous attempts to greatly extend, perhaps indefinitely, the human lifespan. While transhumanist discussion is predominantly a thinking exercise, it brings up many important ethical dilemmas that may face human society much sooner than the advancements transhumanism desires to bring into reality. The second topic, elective removal of healthy limbs at the request of the patient, carries much more immediate gravity. Sufferers of a mental condition known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder seek to put to rest the disturbing disconnect between their internal body image and their external body composition. This issue is often clouded by sensationalism and controversy in the media, and is therefore rarely discussed in a productive manner (Bridy). This lack of discussion halts progress and potentially limits citizens' rights, as legislation is enacted without sufficient research. The primary arguments against each topic are surprisingly similar; an expansion on both transhumanism and elective amputation follows, along with a discussion of the merit of those arguments. The reader will see how limits placed on both transhumanism and elective amputation cause more harm to whole of human society than good.
People now a days have a problem with the way they appear. For hundreds of years, people, especially females, have been concerned with their weight, the way they look, and the way people perceive them. In the article, Do You Have a Body Image Problem? author Dr. Katharine A. Phillips discusses the concerns with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Dr. Phillips uses her knowledge or ethics to discuss the effects that BDD has on people today. She also uses emotion to show the reader how people are seriously affected by this disorder. In Dr. Phillips article, she discusses how people are emotionally and socially affected by the body dysmorphic disorder, and how society is also affected by it.
In John Perry’s “dialogue on personal identity and immorality”, Dave Cohen and Sam Miller visit Gretchen Weirob in the hospital because of Weirob’s injury in a motorcycle accident, they raise a discussion on personal identity. Cohen later takes up issues raised in the case where Julia’s brain is taken from her deteriorated body and placed on the healthy body of Mary whose brain has been destroyed. Therefore Mary has her own body with Julia’s memory and personality. The case proposes an argument
Do you ever feel like you just can’t take reality anymore? You just want to escape it and in order to do so, your conscious awareness becomes separated from all the painful things you can’t stand, including your painful memories. Then suddenly you’re a totally different person. Another identity takes your place in suffering all the painful things you want to escape. Today, I’m going to talk to you about dissociative identity disorder (DID). I will be talking about what DID is, what causes DID and how it affects the individual (host/core). I will also mention a famous case in psychology.
Michalon, Max. “Selflessness in the Service of the Ego,” American Journal of Psychotherapy. Vol.55, No.2, 2001. Web. 21 May 2015.
My topic of choice for this research paper is Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. This appellation is rather new; therefore, most are more familiar with the disorder's older, less technical name: Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD. When first presented with the task of selecting a topic on which to center this paper, I immediately dismissed Dissociative Identity Disorder (which for the sake of brevity will be referred to as DID for the remainder of this paper) as a viable topic due to the sheer scope of the disorder. However after an exhaustive examination of other prospective topics, I found myself back at my original choice. There are several reasons why I chose DID. The foremost of which is the widespread fascination of this disorder by many different types of people; most of whom otherwise have no interest in psychology or its associated fields. One would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t been captivated at one time or another by the extraordinary, all too well known symptoms of this disorder. This fascination… dare I say ‘allure’ to this disorder is exemplified by the myriad of motion pictures that have been produced based on cases, real or fictitious, of DID. Another reason for my choice is what I feel is the insufficiency of effective treatments for DID. Despite what is known about this disorder, (which is relatively a lot) there are only two chief treatments for DID; the first and most prevalent is psychotherapy; also known as ”talk therapy”, the second is medication. The third and final reason for my choice is my own enchantment with DID. I must admit that ever since I read about Sue Tinker, a woman who was diagnosed with over 200 different personalities. In writing this paper I hope to discover more about this disorder and perhaps be able to identify a few areas that I feel might require more research on the part of psychologists specializing in DID.
According to the DSM-5, gender dysphoria is “the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender” (American Psychological Association, 2013). Even though studies have shown that not every individual suffers from distress, it is still possible that an individual might suffers from distress due to the hormonal treatment or surgical procedure(s). In the past, gender dysphoria has been referred to as “gender identity”. However, gender identity, by the DSM-IV definition is “a category of social identity and refers to an individual’s identification as male, female, or occasionally, some category other than male or female” (American Psychological Association, 2000). Individuals that identify themselves with another gender tend to change their sex, which has been proven to be a hard and long process.