Interesting; but deceptive front cover.
From the title and cover of the book it is supposed to be about Multiple Personality Disorder, but really she takes it mostly in another direction - that of analyzing the various dissociative states common in people, such as driving to your destination and not even being aware of the drive cause you were deep in thought. As for the cases of Multiple Personality she actually quoted, one she said did not meet the qualifications for Multiple Personality Disorder, and all the ones she quoted the information about them was pretty generalized. In general I found this book to be a disappointment. I have read (much) better books on this subject than this book.

The Myth of Sanity
I really liked Martha's other book, The Sociopath next door, but this one was a snoozer. I got as far as her hypnotizing one of her patients it took several pages and was mind numbingly boring she wrote every single word she said to hypnotize her patient like it was a "how to" book. I tried reading a few more pages after that but it didn't improve so I quit. It might have gotten better at some point but I just couldn't get there.

How to integrate your dissociated parts!
Martha Stout goes into case studies of patients who had a lot of dissociation, but this book also applies to everyone. We all dissociate, it can be simple as going to the movies and getting engrossed in the movie without realizing that 2 hours have flew by. It can also be subtle, like when someone has selective hearing. Stout offers advice and ideas on how to integrate the dissociated parts of ourselves. This is one book of a few that will help you grow!

A valuable guide for ridding youselves of negative behaviour
Martha stout has produced an essential piece of psychology that everyone should read. For those unfortunate enough to have experienced trauma in early childhood and have kept those events locked away in their subconscious many case studies are presented to assist in how to go about repairing the damage caused. Even if you have survived childhood relatively unscathed, it really highlights just how much of our time is spent in a dissasociative state and what we can do to wake up and take a far more proactive part in our life decisions.

Truly Inspiring and an Eye-Opener
This book was recommended to me, and I have never heard of dissociative states until I read this book. It is indeed an eye-opener for me.

"The Myth of Sanity" is one of the best analysis on dissociated mental states, forgotten memories of childhood or adult trauma, and multiple personality disorders. She brings the tales of dissociated states or multiple personality from her patients and her experiences with them, and how these states are often common in everyday life. This book is truly inspiring and an eye-opener.

In Stout's words, a dissociation is "the universal human reaction to extreme fear or pain...in traumatic situations, [it] mercifully allows us to disconnect emotional content - the feeling part of our 'selves' - from our conscious awareness" (p. 8). This term is important for everyone as it should be applied to our understanding of being self-aware, of being self-conscious. Self-awareness is extremely important because, without it, we would not have known ourselves to exist or having a sense of self-identity. It is part of who we are. When we are in a dissociated state, our self-awareness had left our bodies and is elsewhere, and our bodies are either in trance or doing what they normally do. Much like a machine, now is it not?

To put it in another way as Stout pointed it out: "As the result of a daydream, this mental compartmentalization is called distraction. As the result of an involving movie, it is often called escape. As the result of trauma, physical or psychological, it is called a dissociative state" (p. 27). Whenever we are distracted, we are in a mildly dissociative state. Distraction and escape are quite familiar to everyone because they live these states almost constantly and every single day. When we are driving and thinking about something else while our automatic bodies do the driving, we are in a dissociative state. How is this so? Because our minds are away from our bodies and not focusing on the driving as we should have. We would forget our surroundings and our bodies' reactions to those surroundings. Whenever we are distracted, our minds are detached from our bodies' sensation to whatever object was touched. Has anyone ever noticed how they got the cut on their leg or arm and not having remembered where they have gotten it? This is one of the consequences of being in a dissociated state.

How would an understanding of "dissociation" from this book be helpful for the readers? It is a powerful understanding or clue for one to be engaged in a self-observation, which requires one to be fully conscious of one's being and one's surroundings. Distraction actually can hinder us to be engaged in self-observation or being self-conscious. We would lose ourselves, letting our sense of self be far away from our bodies. What if you are not in control of your bodies and your bodies are being influenced to do things that you yourself would never do? This brought us to the question of our minds being controlled or influenced without our being aware of it. But, this should not be a scary notion on the readers' mind. We do have a choice to make: to be or not to be.

Stout has given us the list of signs of dissociates states in ourselves in her book and we can identify which one we would fall under. And, these includes a brief phasing out, habitual dissociative reaction, a dissociation from feeling states, intrusion of dissociated ego state, demifugue, and fugue. These signs are extremely helpful to discover the clues about ourselves and compel us to be more aware of our actions and reactions in everyday life. In order to be self-observant, one would need to develop an observing ego, as suggested by the author in this book.

If we choose to do so, we can look at ourselves and find one or more of these signs in ourselves. Once we do find these dissociative states in ourselves, we can choose not to be associated with them and to keep our self-aware active. Stout's "Myth of Sanity" is a highly important study in one's need to be engaged in self-observation or being self-conscious. Increased self-observation will help one to become more self-conscious of one's surrounding and become more attentive to people's action as well as one's own. It also a great book for one to seek a personal growth or search for one's identity.

I would strongly recommended this book for the readers. It is one of the most treasures that one can ever ask for.