Watching Kyle Sampson's testimony from yesterday's DoJ firings hearing

[whistle]

....I kept thinking how could someone like Kyle Sampson a law student himself assume such a high position of authority and responsibility turn out to be such a forgetful dolt, a person not at all very bright? Then I wondered that given his "Jesus Camp" style upbringing and exposure to the likes of Orrin Hatch and others, might it be DID <dissociative identity disorder>? This could very well explain why the GOP party is not at all afraid to have these select individuals appear because unless the Watergate hearings, they know there will be no John Dean revelations. Kyle Sampson's more dangerous three of four professional personalities and identies are safely locked away while the dolt is what appears to give testimony.

<snip>
Multiple Personality Disorder <dissociative identity disorder>

....students often ask me whether multiple personality disorder (MPD) really exists. I usually reply that the symptoms attributed to it are as genuine as hysterical paralysis and seizures....
--Dr. Paul McHugh

Multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by having at least one "alter" personality that controls behavior. The "alters" are said to occur spontaneously and involuntarily, and function more or less independently of each other. The unity of consciousness, by which we identify our selves, is said to be absent in MPD. Another symptom of MPD is significant amnesia which can't be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV replaced the designation of MPD with DID: dissociative identity disorder. The label may have changed, but the list of symptoms remained essentially the same.

Memory and other aspects of consciousness are said to be divided up among "alters" in the MPD. The number of "alters" identified by various therapists ranges from several to tens to hundreds. There are even some reports of several thousand identities dwelling in one person. There does not seem to be any consensus among therapists as to what an "alter" is. Yet, there is general agreement that the cause of MPD is repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. The evidence for this claim has been challenged, however, and there are very few reported cases of MPD afflicting children.

Psychologist Nicholas P. Spanos argues that repressed memories of childhood abuse and multiple personality disorder are "rule-governed social constructions established, legitimated, and maintained through social interaction." In short, Spanos argues that most cases of MPD have been created by therapists with the cooperation of their patients and the rest of society. The experts have created both the disease and the cure. This does not mean that MPD does not exist, but that its origin and development are often, if not most often, explicable without the model of separate but permeable ego-states or "alters" arising out of the ashes of a destroyed "original self."

<MORE>

http://skepdic.com/mpd.html

[C_U_L8R]

1. the simpler answer is often the right answer

he's lying :-)

[whistle]

3. That's what I thought!

:wtf:

[Raven]

2. I would not dignify Kyle Simpson's behavior with a legitimate

mental health diagnosis...there is nothing wrong with this guy that a little ethics and humility wouldn't cure. At best, he has "foot in mouth" disease with a little hubris thrown in.

[whistle]

4. Then this schmuck Sampson needs to be brought up on perjury charges

....and contempt of Congress. Screw the MPD/DID shit!!! :spank:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. And at some points of his testimony, I believe he does regret some of what he has done.

Somewhere, once upon a time, before he sold his soul to the devil, I think there was a decent human being within that shell at one time.

[Turbineguy]

6. I think so too

When he was busy doing these things (and keeping lousy records) he was convinced that he was doing the right thing in the right cause. Belief that you are on a mission from God and all that.

He did resign. An unusually honorable thing to do for a republican apparatchik. I suspect however that even since he resigned he's beginning to think he resigned for the wrong reason.

I have to wonder what the purpose is of putting somebody with apparently so little experience in such a position. Or is that just the all-around incompetence that is the hallmark of the Bush Administration?