June 7, 2023: A new way to treat multiple personality disorder, milestones in the fight against HIV and wildfire smoke obscures the Northeast. Read below! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a condition in which a person has two or more distinct personalities that regularly take control of their behavior. Traditionally, the goal of treating this condition has been to "integrate" all the personalities into one core self. But psychotherapist and anthropologist Rebecca Lester took a different approach with a young woman named Ella. Their therapy got Ella's 12 personalities to work together as a team.
Why this is inspiring: Western cultures tend to think of the self as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated center of emotional awareness. But many cultures and some neuroscientists see the self as a collection of different minds or souls. Embracing Ella's distinct personalities rather than eradicating them allowed for a more peaceful coexistence, a community of sorts.
Did it work? In the years following treatment, Ella (whose name has been changed to protect her identity) graduated college, established a career, fell in love and had a child of her own. Her many parts still exist, sometimes just below the surface, and they use their different skills to help Ella navigate the world, she says. Listen to this podcast to hear more about this story. | | |
Why this matters: An HIV/AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. The program has indirectly improved nutrition and treatment of other diseases like tuberculosis and Ebola, especially in Africa, which benefited from the influx of medical care and resources.
What the experts say: New prophylactic therapies help prevent the spread of the virus, and new treatments in development that use HIV-resistant stem cells have cleared the virus from several patients. But "certainly that's still a work in progress," says Phyllis Kanki, professor of immunology at Harvard University. | | | Credit: Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images | | | In New York City, the sun was shrouded this morning as it rose in a hazy, smoky sky. Air quality measurements are among the worst on record because of high levels of particulate matter billowing in with smoke from wildfires in Canada. Fine particles have a diameter of 2.5 microns or smaller—tiny enough to travel deep into the respiratory system. | | | • If you live in the Northeast and are experiencing dramatic smokey conditions from fires in Canada, Scientific American will be posting live updates and images. Follow along here. If you're wondering how long this smoke will last, it depends on changing weather patterns.| 5 min read | | | • On June 5, 2022, Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were killed during a reporting trip for a project to save the Amazon rainforest. A new collaborative investigation will continue what they started. | The Guardian | • The genocide of Native Americans was nowhere more brutal than in California. A new council has been tasked with confronting the ugly truths of that story. | The New York Review | | | An eerie orange light overtook New York City this afternoon as I watched from my desk--an unsettling reminder that smoke from wildfires is more common in other parts of this country. For more on the expansive human health toll of wildfires, check out this article we published in 2020. | Tell me what you would like to see in these newsletters, or if you're enjoying reading them! Reach out to me at newsletters@sciam.com. Hoping for clearer skies tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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