Myth: DID requires amnesia between parts

What the diagnosis actually asks for

People often imagine DID as one identity waking up with no idea what any of the others have done. Real presentations are usually much more varied.¹

A common misunderstanding is that DID requires complete amnesia between every identity state. The diagnostic criteria do not say that. They require identity disruption and recurring memory gaps beyond ordinary forgetting.¹² In practice, dissociative amnesia is often more complicated than that picture suggests.

Two different questions

The SCID-D puts amnesia and identity alteration in separate sections.³ They can show up together. They are still different symptoms.

In a short video, Dr. Mike Lloyd uses the SCID-D's structure to distinguish the memory criterion from identity alteration. While paging through the interview, he notes that in the amnesia section, it's not asking about parts or alters or others.⁴ Turning to identity alteration, he says the section is not talking about amnesia.⁴ Read together, these observations do not make amnesia optional. They show that amnesia and identity alteration are assessed separately, so the required memory gaps need not show up as every part being unaware of every other part.

The SCID-D is not built around a vague impression. In one French-language validation study, independent raters agreed 96% of the time when deciding whether participants had a dissociative disorder.⁵ A meta-analysis of 15 studies also found that the overall interview and each of its five sections separated dissociative from non-dissociative presentations.⁶ That does not turn one interview into a diagnosis by itself. It does mean the areas it asks about are clinically meaningful and well studied.

How memory gaps can show up

Someone may remember attending work yesterday but have no memory of a particular conversation. Another person may remember the facts of an argument without remembering saying certain words. Memory can be partial, one-way, or inconsistent, and access may change over time.⁷

Experimental studies have found that information can sometimes transfer between identity states even when people report strong subjective amnesia.⁷ Feeling unable to access a memory and showing absolutely no transfer of information are not necessarily the same thing.

The important question is not whether every identity state remembers every other one. The question is whether the person experiences recurring memory gaps beyond ordinary forgetting together with identity disruption. That is what clinicians are assessing.¹²

Footnotes

1. International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12(2), 115-187. pp. 117-118. Core diagnostic features, including identity disruption and amnesia. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.). What are dissociative disorders? Dissociative identity disorder; diagnostic features. Public DSM-5-TR summary describing distinct identity states and ongoing memory gaps as DID diagnostic features. ↩ ↩²

3. Steinberg, M. (2023). The SCID-D interview: Dissociation assessment in therapy, forensics, and research. American Psychiatric Association Publishing. Description and contents; Five Component Model. Purpose, symptom domains, structure, classification mapping, and administration requirements for the SCID-D. ↩

4. Lloyd, M. (2026, March 22). Seeking the truth about amnesia for parts in DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) [Video]. The CTAD Clinic. YouTube. 3:23-6:03, SCID-D discussion. Explanation that the SCID-D assesses amnesia and identity alteration separately and that awareness between identity states can vary. ↩ ↩²

5. Piedfort-Marin, O., Tarquinio, C., Steinberg, M., et al. (2022). Reliability and validity study of the French-language version of the SCID-D semi-structured clinical interview for diagnosing DSM-5 and ICD-11 dissociative disorders. Annales Médico-psychologiques, revue psychiatrique, 180(6 Suppl.), S1-S9. Abstract; inter-rater reliability and discriminant validity. In a 49-participant validation study, raters had 96% agreement distinguishing dissociative disorder from no dissociative disorder; the study also reported good to excellent reliability. ↩

6. Mychailyszyn, M. P., Brand, B. L., Webermann, A. R., Sar, V., & Draijer, N. (2021). Differentiating dissociative from non-dissociative disorders: A meta-analysis of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D). Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(1), 19-34. Abstract; 15-study meta-analysis. Meta-analysis finding that overall SCID-D scores and all five subscales differentiated dissociative from non-dissociative disorders, factitious presentations, and simulated dissociation. ↩

7. Huntjens, R. J. C., Verschuere, B., & McNally, R. J. (2012). Inter-identity amnesia in dissociative identity disorder: A simulated memory impairment? PLOS ONE, 7(7), e40580. Results and discussion. Difference between subjective amnesia reports and performance on experimental memory tasks. ↩ ↩²