Dissociative Identity Disorder occurs when a child under the age of 8 experiences trauma that surpasses his coping ability. At this point God designed the brain to form alternate identities to handle the trauma so that the primary person is unaware of it and spared its immediate effects. It is evidenced by a person having two or more distinct identities; each demonstrating a consistent perspective of, and pattern of relating to, self, others, and the environment and recurrently taking executive control of the person’s behavior; with some degree of amnesia between some of them.

This lesser state of dissociation produces a subtle separation of the primary self into three pain-buffering primary identities (Function, Buffer, Pain) that usually shift seamlessly among themselves. Additional primary identities serving special purposes and/or internal identities that do not take executive control of the body may also be formed.