The human brain is equipped with a complex visual information processing system that provides us with vision. However, even if this system is in good working order, you can become blind.
This is exactly what happened to the heroine of this article, who lives in Germany. At some point in her life, she simply stopped seeing. At first, doctors thought the loss of vision was the result of a brain injury sustained in the accident. However, a few years later this woman was undergoing psychotherapy (she was diagnosed with a mental disorder) and suddenly her visual system began to switch from a sighted state to a blind one. As a result, her eyesight returned to her almost completely.
“The restoration of vision occurred immediately after the therapy session, during which we tried to overcome the consequences of a serious traumatic event. By that time, the patient had been blind for many years,”said Dr. Hans Strasburger from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
About 14 years ago, a 33-year-old (at the time) woman with the initials BT was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. She was prescribed therapy, which she received in Munich.
Dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality syndrome, is characterized by memory impairment and the coexistence of at least two distinct personality states. Most often, it affects people who have experienced severe psychological trauma in childhood, who were physically or psychologically abused. However, the diagnosis itself is considered quite controversial - some authoritative experts consider it to be a kind of culture-specific phenomenon. In their opinion, psychotherapists themselves sometimes push the patient towards the fact that he begins to believe in the “splitting” of his own consciousness.
BT came to Dr. Waldvogel's appointment with her guide dog, explaining that she lost her sight 13 years ago. After reviewing her medical records, the doctor learned that the patient had been diagnosed with cortical blindness as a result of traumatic brain injury.
Further examination revealed the presence of 10 BT personalities - all with different names, manner of speaking, age, gender, gestures, facial expressions, mental abilities, temperament and other character traits. Some individuals spoke only English, others only German, and still others knew both languages (as a child, V. T. lived in an English-speaking country, where she spoke only English).
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In the fourth year of psychotherapy, after another session, the patient was suddenly able to recognize several words printed on the cover of the magazine. At that moment, her body belonged to the personality of a young boy.
However, although she was able to recognize whole words, she was not able to recognize the individual letters of which these words consisted. But in the course of subsequent sessions V. T. began to distinguish between brightly lit objects until her vision returned to near normal.
Initially, the patient's ability to see was limited to only one of the individuals who lived in her. However, little by little, with the help of an experienced psychotherapist, more and more of her personalities gained sight. According to doctors, the blind and sighted state could change in a matter of seconds.