Dissociative Identity Disorder - 3 reasons why alters may be aggressive (also for OSDD)

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-05

[00:00:09]Hi, my name is Dr. Mike Lloyd and I'm a consultant clinical psychologist. And I'm going to be looking in the video today trying to understand why some alters might behave in a very aggressive kind of way. Now, when I say alters, what I mean are sort of constructs of identity within systems such as those with people having other specified dissociative disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and in some cases partial dissociative identity disorder.

[00:00:34]So, OSDD, DID, and partial DID. And within these systems, there are a series of one or more of parts or alters or others, whatever we want to call them, that behave in very different ways, that can communicate, that can influence, and that can sometimes interrupt everyday functioning, and sort of do a lot of things that they might want to do that isn't necessarily going to be all that useful or productive in in the world.

[00:01:00]They're nearly always trauma-based, and we can often formulate the reasons for those behaviors back to the nature of the trauma. But for some people, this is extremely extremely difficult and problematic in everyday life. So, we talk about it being disruptive. And what that means is that these parts can have an influence or they can interrupt behavior in a way that is quite aggressive and quite potentially violent, frightening, threatening, and all these kind of things. Now, sometimes to the self, sometimes to other parts within the system, and sometimes to people in the outside world, which can obviously generate an enormous amount of difficulty.

[00:01:38]And I see this time after time with people with with OSDD and DID is that they have these sort of parts within, and their their everyday life, their their feeling of being secure and safe in their everyday life is extremely difficult for them to be able to deal with. So, what in the video today I'm going to be looking at three potential reasons why this might be happening to help people understand. Ultimately with the goal of having some compassion and empathy towards these parts because ultimately they are trauma-based, they need a lot of help, they need a lot of reassurance, but often they're just sort of pushed away and ignored. Stay out of the way because you're horrible, and that really doesn't help ultimately.

[00:02:17]So, here are the three reasons why I think this might be happening. Now, there will be more reasons, but these are probably the most common reasons why this stuff might be happening. The first reason is repetition.

[00:02:31]Often a lot of people with trauma histories that end up with OSDD and DID have been abused in childhood. They've been mistreated, they've been hurt, they've been punished, they've been they've been basically the behavior towards them has been aggressive or violent or controlling or critical or threatening in some or all ways.

[00:02:48]So, what often can happen is that children learn from their parents, they learn from the adults around them. It's social learning theory, and they pick up the behaviors and the mannerisms and the the tone of voice, the actions, all of those kind of things from the adults within their that that are supposedly caring for them. So, it's a straightforward mimicking learning type behavior. You are repeating what you saw. So, in the same way that we learn how to tie our shoelaces, or we learn how to use a knife and fork, or we learn how to just do the everyday things in life from observing the adults around us, those become sort of built into us, aggressive behaviors can also take place. So, we know this that some children grow up to become quite aggressive children because they had aggressive parents. Some children grow up to be quite altruistic adults because they had altruistic parents. So, social learning theory tells us that children learn from the adults around them and mimic mimic or repeat or internalize that behavior as they go through adult life.

[00:03:52]So, it should be no different for alters within the system. So, if there is an aggressive alter within the system of OSDD or DID, it's entirely likely that there was an aggressive adult in the background of that child's development and upbringing that they've learned that behavior from. So, pure repetition.

[00:04:10]The second one is a preventative measure, so it's prevention. And this is where we come with that adage that attack is the best form of defense.

[00:04:20]If there is a part that feels that they need to keep people away, they need to keep folks on the outside away because they are potentially threatening or harmful in the sense of I've been hurt once and I will not allow myself to be hurt again, or they might be protective of the system, I will not allow anyone to harm the body or harm anybody within the body ever again. Therefore, I'm going to go on the attack whenever possible to show people this is a hostile environment to keep everybody away.

[00:04:51]So, they might sabotage relationships, they might break friendships down, they might cause disrupt disruption in all aspects of the outside world with the goal being stop anyone getting close.

[00:05:03]This might also be the case if there are secrets, if there are traumas held within the system that absolutely need to be kept hidden.

[00:05:13]It's a great way of being able to keep everybody away from those secrets and from that trauma. So, anyone who tries to get close or who looks like they might get close to the things I don't want to go towards, I will push and keep those people away. So, that's the that's the the second reason. It's a preventative measure. So, the degree to which it comes out or the point at which it comes out can often be quite difficult to ascertain why it's happened cuz it's almost like a permanent defense mechanism that is in place that is just going through these motions. I'm going to keep doing this in order to prevent anything in the future from happening, to prevent anybody getting close to us.

[00:05:54]And the third and final reason I'm going to look at today is reaction. So, this aggressive sort of abusive, and it can either be verbal or it can be physical, again internally or externally, is about reacting to a threat that's taken place.

[00:06:10]So, if anything is happening or is perceived to happen like a trigger, then this explosion takes place. So, that's a bit easier to work out cuz you can often see the link between whatever's taken place, whatever's triggered a a feeling of being unsafe or being in threat or feeling that someone is going to do something horrible, and this part comes out. So, it's similar to part two, but it's a more of a reactive thing. It allows us to know when and why it's happening in specific circumstances.

[00:06:41]So, the goal is always to try and make sense of it. The good thing about this third reactive thing is that there's an opportunity to step in and say you're not needed because that that's often where it's at its worst because it's about the present day, because it's something that's in the moment, it seems like the threat isn't a predicted might happen in the future. The sense is that the threat is happening now, so it's like an explosive reaction in order to keep everything away. So, it's the sort of the equivalent of the porcupine suddenly like turning around and flying all its sort of spikes out because it feels like someone's going to harm it in that moment. Ultimately, this comes down to being scared, and we have to remember that all of these aggressive parts, while they might be doing all of these three three things at the same time, they might be repeating the behavior of adults acting in a very adult-like threatening way, they might be keeping everybody away from the secrets that are inside, and they might be responding to a threat. They are child parts developed from early childhood trauma that are playing this stuff out in the adult world.

[00:07:53]We always have to look back to that empathy and that compassion and the patience and the understanding to be able to make sense of exactly why this is happening to help reassure that safety is something that can now be gained in the present day, assuming things are safe, obviously.

[00:08:12]And to reassure them that that level of sort of defensive aggression is no longer needed, and it's a hard task. The steps towards it are very very sort of painstaking and methodical, and this is where therapy is highly recommended to start approaching these parts, to work with them with all of that compassion and empathy to be able to teach the skills by which these parts can settle and regain a sense of position in life, not to get rid of, absolutely not to get rid of, but to realign the behaviors, to find other roles, other tasks for them to do that can be very helpful.

[00:08:52]And the real tip here is that those parts are often the most positively influential and helpful once they're on your side. But getting them to that point is is the trick. Um so, there are many steps towards that. That's what therapy is all about, and and good therapists can work towards this really really positively and constructively.

[00:09:16]So, there we go then. So, looking at why some parts or alters or others within systems of OSDD and DID can behave in this kind of like really sort of confusingly aggressive or violent or abusive type way, either towards the body, towards others within the system, or those people in the outside world, there are reasons for this. It's really unlikely for it to be a random circumstance. And things like repetition, prevention, and reaction are ways to be able to start building a framework to understand why these parts might be doing this sort of stuff in order for ultimately the cause of that to be healed, to find a different role, a different purpose in life that is more helpful internally and externally. So, thanks ever so much for watching this video. As always, please do leave any comments in the in the in the video so that I can have a sense of what you think about this and yeah, just to generate some conversation which is extremely helpful.

[00:10:16]And yeah, do all the like, subscribing, and sharing, and notifications, and all that kind of thing. And I love the fact that people are going back and watching some of the earlier videos that were made many years ago. I still see those coming up in the comments section.

[00:10:30]Fantastic. Please do go back to that back back catalog because it's not out of date. It's a lot of good material in there. So, thanks ever so much and in between now and the next video, as always, please do take great care.