Dr Adah Sachs

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (American Psychiatric Association 2013) is examined in this presentation from the perspective of its relevance to the criminologist. As this psychiatric condition is linked to severe and prolonged childhood abuse, accounts of DID patients inevitably involve reports of serious crimes, in which the person was the victim, perpetrator or witness. These reports can thus contain crucial information for criminal investigations by the police or for court proceedings. However, due to the person’s dissociative states, such reports are often very confusing, hard to follow or believe and difficult to obtain. Through the analysis of clinical examples, Dr Adah Sachs explores how decisions are made by a person with DID, the notions of choice and’competent reasoning’, and the practical and ethical ways for interviewing a person with DID who has witnessed or participated in a crime.
(A version of this presentation was published (2015) at the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy)

Audio presentation with captions and slides – 30 mins

About the Speaker

Dr. Adah Sachs is consultant psychotherapist and psychodynamic lead for the London borough of Redbridge. She is also a visiting faculty at the Bowlby Centre and the Centre for child mental health. Previously, she worked for a decade in psychiatric hospital for adolescent, and for another decade a consultant psychotherapist and forensic clinical lead for the Clinic for Dissociative Disorders. Her special interest is intergenerational trauma.