The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES): a flawed measure of dissociation

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) was developed in 1986 by Eve Bernstein (Carlson) and Frank Putnam to address a gap in clinical practice: the absence of quantitative tools to screen for dissociation (Bernstein & Putnam 1986, Putnam 1997). At the time, dissociation was gaining renewed clinical attention with the reintroduction of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) into the DSM-III and the rise of trauma-informed models of psychopathology. High-profile cases like Sybil captured both professional and public imagination, and clinicians needed an accessible way to identify dissociative symptoms in both research and therapeutic settings. The DES emerged from this climate as a self-report tool intended to quickly measure a broad continuum of dissociative experiences, from normative daydreaming to more pathological states like amnesia and identity fragmentation.

What is the DES?#

The DES is a 28-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure how frequently respondents experience a range of dissociative phenomena. Each item is rated from 0% to 100%, representing the percentage of time the respondent experiences the described event. These items are generally recognized to cluster into three empirically derived categories: amnesia, depersonalization/derealization, and absorption (Lyssenko et al. 2018, Mazzotti et al. 2016).

• Amnesia items assess memory-related discontinuities or information loss. For example: “Some people have the experience of finding new things among their belongings that they do not remember buying.”
• Depersonalization/derealization items assess disconnection from self or environment. For example: “Some people have the experience of feeling that their body does not belong to them.”
• Absorption items describe normative, immersive experiences. For example: “Some people find that they become so involved in a fantasy or daydream that it feels as though it were really happening to them.”

These three categories are commonly replicated across factor analyses of the DES and are thought to reflect different facets of dissociative experience (Carlson and Putnam 1993). The DES attempts to span a broad range of phenomena, from normative to potentially pathological.

Early validation and psychometric strengths#

From its initial development, the DES demonstrated strong psychometric properties. In early validation studies, Eve Bernstein (Carlson) and Frank Putnam administered the scale to both clinical and non-clinical populations. The results revealed dramatic score differences: individuals diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) often scored between 40–50, while non-clinical controls averaged around 4–5 (Carlson and Putnam 1993). These findings suggested that the DES could meaningfully distinguish between those with significant dissociative pathology and those without—but this conclusion rests on the assumption that the scale accurately measures dissociative pathology, an assumption that, as later sections will explore, is itself highly questionable. The scale also demonstrated high internal consistency and test–retest reliability, suggesting that it measured a stable and replicable construct across time and samples (Lyssenko et al. 2018, Putnam et al. 1996, van IJzendoorn & Schuengel 1996).

By the early 1990s, the DES had been adopted in a wide range of studies and was frequently used to assess dissociation in both clinical and non-clinical populations. Because of its ease of use and strong statistical properties, it quickly became the go-to screening tool for dissociative tendencies—and was widely treated as a proxy for trauma-related dissociation, the very purpose for which it was designed (Dalenberg et al. 2012). Over time, it became deeply embedded in dissociation research across a broad spectrum of viewpoints: from advocates of dissociative identity disorder to skeptics of the trauma-dissociation link (Lynn et al. 2012). As a result, the DES appears in hundreds of studies and has profoundly shaped how dissociation is defined, measured, and interpreted in both clinical and empirical contexts. This is especially consequential because, as later sections will explore, the DES is a deeply flawed, culturally biased, and conceptually limited instrument. Its widespread use has introduced systemic distortions into the field, raising serious concerns about the validity of many findings derived from it.

Models of dissociation#

When the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) was developed in the mid-1980s, there was no coherent theoretical framework for understanding dissociation. At the time, the field was much more dominated by highly visible presentations—depersonalization, amnesia, and identity alteration—which shaped early clinical recognition and measurement. These dramatic symptoms, easily observed and compellingly described in case reports, became the basis for most dissociative diagnoses and instruments, including the DES. As a result, the DES reflects the understanding of dissociation that prevailed during its creation, when less visible or subtler dissociative processes were largely unacknowledged.

In the decades since, the theoretical landscape has evolved significantly. One major development is the distinction between detachment and compartmentalization dissociation (Holmes et al. 2005). Detachment refers to a subjective sense of disconnection from the self or environment—such as feeling unreal or watching oneself from the outside—and is commonly associated with depersonalization and derealization. Compartmentalization, by contrast, involves a disruption in the normal integration of memory, identity, emotion, or perception, leading to phenomena like dissociative amnesia, identity discontinuity, or functional neurological symptoms.

The theory of structural dissociation (Nijenhuis et al. 2004, van der Hart et al. 2006) builds on the notion of compartmentalization by proposing that trauma can cause enduring divisions between distinct subsystems of personality. Structural dissociation represents a subtype of compartmentalization in which dissociative barriers form between these systems, impeding full access to memories, emotions, and actions. While detachment symptoms are more common in the general population and often associated with transient stress responses, compartmentalization—especially in its structural form—is central to complex dissociative disorders like DID.

However, this updated conceptual landscape is not reflected in the original design of the DES, which continues to rely on older, more overt depictions of dissociation. Although some recent studies have attempted to map DES items onto newer models (Mazzotti et al. 2016), these efforts remain limited by the instrument’s foundational assumptions. As Braude 2009 argues, such instruments were not designed to clarify the concept of dissociation, but to detect symptoms that the test designers already presumed to be dissociative. Their selective theoretical grounding means they exclude many dissociative phenomena—particularly subtle or internal ones—that fall outside the purview of the original framework. This risks circular reasoning: using the DES to define dissociation reinforces the very assumptions embedded in its construction, while overlooking the broader phenomenological range the concept is meant to capture.

Core critiques of the DES#

Despite its early popularity and ease of administration, the Dissociative Experiences Scale has drawn significant criticism for how it conceptualizes and measures dissociation. These critiques go beyond minor methodological concerns; they challenge the very foundation of what the DES claims to quantify.

Overrepresentation of theatrical or “dramatic” dissociation#

A major limitation of the DES is its emphasis on overt, visually striking forms of dissociation—such as depersonalization, derealization, and feeling as if one is observing oneself from outside the body (Lyssenko et al. 2018, Waller, Putnam, & Carlson 1996). These types of experiences dominate both popular and clinical narratives of dissociation, and their metaphorical framing (“watching oneself like a movie,” “the world feels unreal”) makes them more legible to respondents. As a result, the DES privileges what might be called “cinematic dissociation”—detachment symptoms that are both culturally recognizable and consciously accessible (Lynn et al. 2012).

This creates a sampling and measurement bias. Individuals who experience these dramatic, often disorienting states may score highly, even if their symptoms are transient or not functionally impairing. Meanwhile, those whose dissociative processes are subtle, developmentally ingrained, or normalized may not endorse these items at all—not because they lack dissociation, but because their internal experiences do not conform to the scale’s language or assumptions (Dell 2006, Mazzotti et al. 2016). The DES is thus skewed toward the kind of dissociation people notice, and against the kind that may be hidden even from those who live with it.

Capturing non-pathological dissociation through absorption#

A related but distinct issue lies in the inclusion of absorption—a trait-like capacity for deep immersion in inner experience—as a core dimension of DES scoring. Roughly one-third of the DES’s 28 items load on this absorption factor, which describes non-pathological states such as daydreaming, becoming engrossed in a novel, or imaginatively entering an internal fantasy world (Lyssenko et al. 2018). Example items ask whether one “becomes so involved in a fantasy or daydream that it feels as though it were really happening,” or “gets lost in a movie and loses awareness of surroundings.”

While these experiences are dissociative in a loose phenomenological sense, they are common in the general population and not inherently pathological. Studies have shown that elevated DES scores in non-clinical samples often reflect high absorption rather than trauma-related compartmentalization (Giesbrecht et al. 2007, Merckelbach & Jelicic 2004). The result is a high false-positive rate: individuals who are imaginative, sensitive, or introspectively attuned may receive scores suggestive of dissociation without having any form of dissociative disorder. Because the DES does not distinguish between absorption and structural dissociation in its scoring system, it risks pathologizing normative cognitive styles and inflating prevalence estimates in both research and clinical contexts (Giesbrecht et al. 2008).

Conflating fantasy proneness with dissociation#

An additional concern is the DES’s vulnerability to confounding dissociation with fantasy proneness. Several studies—particularly those by Harald Merckelbach and colleagues—have shown that high DES scores in non-clinical and psychiatric populations often correlate strongly with measures of fantasy proneness (Merckelbach et al. 2000, Merckelbach et al. 2005). This means that individuals who score highly on the DES may not be dissociative in a clinical sense but instead exhibit a vivid imaginative life, high suggestibility, or a proclivity for absorption in fantasy.

Importantly, research has shown that individuals with clinically diagnosed DID are not more fantasy prone than controls (Vissia et al. 2016). Studies that report correlations between fantasy proneness and dissociation typically rely on DES scores as their dissociation measure (Merckelbach et al. 2000, Merckelbach et al. 2005)—meaning they are measuring the test, not the underlying construct.

Because the DES is widely treated as a proxy for trauma-related dissociation, its correlation with fantasy proneness has led to a broader conceptual conflation in the literature. Some researchers have interpreted elevated DES scores as evidence that dissociation itself is merely a cognitive style—reflecting suggestibility, absorption, or a trait of imaginative involvement—rather than a marker of trauma-related psychopathology (Giesbrecht et al. 2007). Others have used this correlation to argue that dissociation is inherently unreliable or prone to response bias (Merckelbach et al. 2020). While fantasy proneness may indeed mimic some dissociative symptoms—and in some cases co-occur with them, especially among trauma-exposed or highly absorptive individuals (Lynn & Rhue 1988, Giesbrecht et al. 2008)—it is not synonymous with the structural disruptions seen in clinical dissociative disorders. However, due to the DES’s widespread use and the ongoing lack of conceptual clarity around trauma-related dissociation, fantasy proneness and dissociation have become routinely and indiscriminately correlated in the academic literature (Dalenberg et al. 2012, Lynn et al. 2012).

This ambiguity in what the DES actually measures muddies the water in both clinical assessment and empirical research. It encourages circular reasoning: studies define dissociation via DES scores, then identify traits like fantasy proneness as characteristics of “dissociative” individuals—when in fact those traits may be driving the score itself. Without tools that can differentiate fantasy-based immersion from trauma-induced compartmentalization, the field risks reifying a false equivalence between imaginative capacity and pathological dissociation.

Failure to capture structural compartmentalization#

Perhaps the most fundamental limitation of the DES is that it fails to measure the core mechanism that defines pathological dissociation in contemporary theory: compartmentalization. This refers to the rigid internal segregation of knowledge, emotion, and experience—often resulting in discontinuities that the individual is unaware of. These manifestations include memory fragmentation, state-dependent access to information or emotions, contradictory self-perceptions that are not recognized as inconsistent, and sudden involuntary shifts in mood, behavior, or perspective in response to cues (Nijenhuis et al. 2004).

The DES is poorly suited to detect these symptoms. It contains only a handful of items related to amnesia—all of which rely on overt behavioral indicators and draw from culturally familiar symptom scripts—and none that assess internal shifts, intrusions, or conflicts between dis-integrated aspects of experience (Dell 2006). Because the instrument relies entirely on self-report, it cannot detect the very phenomena that are inaccessible to conscious awareness—precisely the hallmark of structural dissociation. As a result, the DES is effectively blind to the most defining—and most impairing—features of complex dissociative disorders.

While a study by Mazzotti et al. 2016 classified several DES items as measuring compartmentalization, these reflect only surface-level, overt manifestations—such as memory lapses or misplaced belongings. The deeper, structural features of compartmentalization, like state-dependent shifts or conflicting self-representations, remain inaccessible to self-report and are not addressed by the DES.

From the perspective of structural dissociation theory (Nijenhuis et al. 2004, van der Hart et al. 2006), this is a serious conceptual flaw. The DES focuses on what a person can report, not what they are unaware of. It emphasizes surface experiences like detachment and imaginative immersion while ignoring the internal architecture that makes dissociative disorders so destabilizing. In this way, the DES risks both underdiagnosing covert dissociation and overdiagnosing individuals whose experiences merely resemble dissociation on the surface.

Cultural and linguistic bias in question framing#

A central limitation of the DES lies in the language it uses to frame dissociative experiences. Many items are phrased with vivid, metaphor-laden imagery that reflects the cultural and clinical discourse of the 1980s and 1990s trauma treatment boom. For example, respondents are asked whether they “feel as though they are standing next to themselves or watching themselves do something as if they were looking at another person,” or whether they “feel that their body does not belong to them.” These questions presume a cinematic, externalized mode of self-observation that was common in clinical case reports and popular portrayals of dissociation during that time period (Putnam 1997). This framing made sense in an era when dissociation had to appear strange and dramatic to be recognized—but today it reflects a specific cultural script rather than the full spectrum of dissociative experience.

Many individuals with complex dissociation normalize their symptoms over time, especially when the dissociation began in early childhood. For these individuals, experiences such as emotional numbing, internal discontinuity, or sudden shifts in behavior do not feel strange or theatrical—they simply feel normal (Dell 2006). They may not resonate with questions that describe overt or metaphorical depictions of dissociation, and as a result, they may endorse low values on DES items even when they meet clinical criteria for a dissociative disorder (Hageman et al. 2008). This leads to false negatives: structurally dissociative individuals who go undetected by the test because they do not interpret their experience using the culturally dominant language of dissociation.

At the same time, individuals who are familiar with dissociation as a cultural construct—through online spaces, diagnostic discourse, or exposure to media narratives—may be more likely to adopt and internalize the symptom language used by the DES. For instance, someone who has watched videos or read stories about “feeling like a different person” or “being outside your body” may use that language to understand transient emotional states, identity confusion, or immersive fantasy—even if those experiences are not rooted in pathological dissociation. In such cases, the DES may be picking up the cultural interpretation of dissociation more than the dissociation itself.

This creates a fundamental measurement bias. The DES is most accessible to people who already speak the language it was written in—that is, people who either grew up with the 1980s symptom script or who have absorbed it through contemporary “plural” subcultures. But those who lack this conceptual vocabulary—especially covertly dissociative individuals who are not aware of their compartmentalization—are less likely to endorse these items. The result is an instrument that captures surface-level familiarity with the dissociation narrative rather than its internal architecture.

This effect is compounded by the fact that the DES is not culturally neutral. A growing body of research demonstrates that how individuals interpret and respond to DES items is shaped by cultural identity, racialized experience, gendered socialization, and exposure to dominant clinical narratives. Cross-cultural studies have found significant variation in both DES scores and item endorsement patterns across demographic groups, even when diagnostic criteria remain constant (Kleindorfer 1998, De Maynard 2002, Lewis-Fernández 2007). These findings suggest that the DES does not simply measure dissociation—it measures dissociation as expressed and recognized within a particular cultural frame. As a result, scores on the DES can vary widely across studies not necessarily because of differences in dissociation itself, but because of differences in how dissociation is conceptualized, described, and normalized within the sample population. Interpretation of results depends as much on who is being studied—what they know about dissociation, how fantasy-prone or self-aware they are, and what cultural narratives they have access to—as it does on the instrument itself. This has implications not only for clinical detection, but for the research literature as a whole: when the same instrument is used to operationalize dissociation across diverse contexts, it shapes the very definitions, theories, and causal models that emerge. In this way, the DES has helped reinforce a culturally contingent understanding of dissociation while appearing to offer a universal measure.

As diagnostic paradigms have evolved, many clinicians now recognize that dissociation is not always externally visible or readily articulable (ISSTD Fact Sheet IV). Yet the DES remains tethered to a symptom profile that assumes visibility, metaphoric clarity, and cultural legibility. In doing so, it excludes many of the very individuals it was designed to identify. By privileging a particular style of dissociation—overt, dramatic, and easy to describe—it fails to measure the more silent, structural forms of dissociation that often go unnoticed until long into treatment.

Measurement scale confusion#

The DES uses a 0–100% “percentage of time” scale for each item, but this format is both unusual and poorly specified. Respondents are asked to estimate how often they experience certain dissociative phenomena without being given a clear time frame—such as “in the past week,” “over the past year,” or “during your lifetime.” This omission leads to high variability in interpretation (Lyssenko et al. 2018). Some individuals may answer based on recent memory, while others draw on general life impressions, making comparisons across participants statistically unreliable.

The reference context of each question is also ambiguous. For example, the first question of the DES is:

“Some people have the experience of driving or riding in a car or bus or subway and suddenly realizing that they don’t remember what has happened during all or part of the trip. Select the number to show what percentage of the time this happens to you. (0% Never, 100% Always)”

It’s unclear whether this asks how often such experiences occur during transportation specifically, or how often they occur in general. Further ambiguity arises: does the percentage refer to how often one realizes the memory lapse, or to how often one experiences memory loss—something that, by definition, one may not be aware of? Without consistent instruction, respondents are left to guess what exactly they’re being asked to quantify.

No other widely-used psychological instrument—such as the PHQ-9, PCL-5, or BDI—uses a 0–100% format. Standardized tools typically use categorical frequency options (e.g., “never,” “sometimes,” “often”) and define a fixed time window. These conventions support greater consistency and allow for meaningful clinical thresholds—features the DES lacks.

Furthermore, the requirement to quantify dissociative phenomena as a percentage of time is especially ill-suited to dissociative populations. Individuals with memory loss or compromised self-awareness are being asked to assign precise numerical values to experiences they may not fully remember or recognize. This creates a paradox: the more severe the dissociation, the less likely the individual is to accurately report on it, yet the test depends entirely on self-report.

The DES’s percentage-based format undermines the validity of its scoring. It gives an illusion of objectivity, while producing internally inconsistent and externally incomparable results. While a single respondent may show score stability over time, inter-individual comparisons are unreliable—limiting the tool’s utility in both research and diagnostic contexts.

Implications for Diagnosis and Research#

Low scores in highly dissociative individuals#

The DES is often assumed to provide a lower-bound indicator of dissociation—if someone scores low, they are presumed to have few or no dissociative symptoms. But this assumption is deeply flawed. Individuals with high levels of compartmentalization-based dissociation may not recognize their symptoms as unusual, particularly if those experiences have been present since early childhood and have become normalized over time (Dell 2006, Hageman et al. 2008). Moreover, if they are unfamiliar with the culturally shaped symptom language of dissociation, they may fail to endorse items on the DES—even when those experiences are present (Lyssenko et al. 2018). The DES’s reliance on metaphorical phrasing and conscious recall further limits its ability to detect dissociative phenomena that operate outside of awareness (Nijenhuis et al. 2004).

A 1993 multicenter study reported that only 1% of individuals diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (now DID) scored below the commonly used DES threshold of 30 (Carlson et al. 1993). However, this study took place during a period when DID was primarily identified through overt identity alteration and dramatic symptomatology. Subtler presentations—such as those characterized by structurally dis-integrated internal states rather than visible behavioral shifts—were likely underrecognized. More recent work suggests that individuals with dissociative identity disorder may score deceptively low on the DES (Fisher 2017, Hageman et al. 2008). Anecdotally, numerous individuals on Reddit and similar platforms report initially scoring very low on the DES despite eventually receiving a dissociative disorder diagnosis. In these cases, low scores are often attributable to three factors: (1) symptom presentations that diverge from the culturally dominant DID stereotype, (2) unfamiliarity with dissociative terminology, and (3) a mismatch between lived experience and the DES’s phrasing. Many of these individuals also describe a substantial increase in their DES scores after receiving a diagnosis, as they become more aware of previously unrecognized dissociative symptoms. This trend reinforces the concern that lack of awareness—both conceptual and experiential—can significantly depress initial DES scores.

Psychotherapist Janina Fisher echoes these concerns, noting that:

“Clinicians using [the DES] report a high rate of false negatives (very low scores in clients who later demonstrate very obvious DID symptoms, e.g., switching of parts during a therapy session). These false negatives can be dangerous if they give the therapist a green light to go ahead with therapeutic work (e.g., memory processing) that exceeds the client’s window of tolerance and activates the parts to act out self-destructively.” (Fisher 2017, page 151)

This has significant implications. Low DES scores may lead clinicians and researchers to falsely conclude that dissociation is absent, overlooking individuals with fragmented internal structures who are unaware of their own discontinuities (Dell 2006). Clinically, this can delay accurate diagnosis and lead to misattributions—such as labeling the symptoms as mood or personality disorders. In research, it contributes to the systematic exclusion of these individuals from dissociative samples, skewing both prevalence estimates and group-level findings.

Personal anecdote: low DES scores despite severe dissociation#

I am someone who is highly dissociative who scored sub-threshold for even PTSD when I first took the DES. This, I now understand, was due to a variety of factors. First of all, I was not aware of the culture surrounding dissociation, so even though I was having the experiences the DES was claiming to capture, I was unable to recognize the culture-laden language describing those experiences. Additionally, I was unaware of vast swaths of my dissociative symptoms—they were normal to me, so I didn’t know they were symptoms. The DES also failed to capture the most severe of my symptoms relating to dissociative compartmentalization.

Most importantly, I believe, was that the scale system—where we are supposed to rank how often we experience a phenomenon based on a percentage of time, with no further instructions—genuinely made no sense to me. I put either 0% or 10% for everything, because I didn’t know what time span I was supposed to be calculating over, how to estimate percentages for experiences I had no objective reference point for, or how to interpret ambiguous item wording. As an autistic person and a mathematician, I highly value precision and was unable to apply a quantitative scale that required making up subjective estimates without any clear reference point. In hindsight, my low score had nothing to do with the absence of dissociation. It was a reflection of my unfamiliarity with the cultural script, the opacity of the scale format, and the normalization of symptoms that had always been part of my experience.

High scores in non-dissociative individuals#

Conversely, it has been repeatedly reported in the academic literature that the DES often produces high scores in individuals without a dissociative disorder (Steele et al. 2017, Carlson et al. 1993, Giesbrecht et al. 2008, Muris 1999, Ross et al. 1990). For example, Carlson et al. (1993) reported that only 17% of individuals scoring above 30 on the DES met criteria for DID (Carlson et al. 1993)—a discrepancy partly explained by the low base rate of DID in the general population. But elevated DES scores can also result from non-dissociative traits such as absorption, fantasy proneness, psychological distress, or suggestibility (Merckelbach et al. 2000, Giesbrecht et al. 2007). These traits can drive endorsement of DES items that resemble dissociative phenomena in language but not in structure. For example, someone who becomes deeply immersed in fiction or prone to vivid imagery may endorse items about daydreaming, depersonalization, or time loss—even in the absence of trauma-based fragmentation (Lyssenko et al. 2018).

This is particularly relevant in online spaces, where high DES scores are frequently used as a basis for self-diagnosing dissociative disorders. Social media and community forums often encourage individuals to “take the DES” and interpret the result as an indicator of dissociation. But the tool’s broad inclusivity means that many high scorers are better understood as introspective, imaginative, or highly influenced by cultural scripts—not dissociative in the clinical sense (Merckelbach et al. 2000, Giesbrecht et al. 2007). This leads to overdiagnosis and reinforces the conflation between imaginative cognitive style and pathological dissociation.

Consequences in research#

Because the DES is the most widely used measure of dissociation, it has had an outsized influence on the direction, scope, and conclusions of dissociation research over the past several decades. Thousands of studies rely on DES scores to define dissociative samples, compare diagnostic groups, or assess correlations with trauma, memory, fantasy proneness, and other psychological traits. However, this reliance has introduced a pervasive and underacknowledged conceptual distortion: the DES does not selectively measure trauma-related compartmentalization. Instead, it captures a mixture of detachment experiences and normative traits like absorption, fantasy proneness, and imaginative immersion (Giesbrecht et al. 2007, Lyssenko et al. 2018, Merckelbach et al. 2020).

This misalignment has serious consequences. Individuals with severe compartmentalization-based dissociation may be misclassified as non-dissociative due to low DES scores (Fisher 2017), while individuals with no dissociative disorder may be counted as dissociative solely based on high scores. As a result, research samples become muddled, group comparisons become unreliable, and prevalence estimates are distorted. More broadly, this leads to a deep conflation in the literature between dissociation and traits that only resemble it linguistically, but are structurally and etiologically distinct (Merckelbach et al. 2000, Patihis and Lynn 2017).

This confusion is compounded by the fact that “dissociation” itself was never well-defined when the DES was created—and to some extent, still isn’t. Historically, the field lacked a coherent framework, and the DES reflects the dominant symptomatology of its time: depersonalization, amnesia, and dramatic identity shifts. In contrast, contemporary models increasingly converge on a distinction between detachment and compartmentalization (Holmes et al. 2005), with the latter recognized as the core pathology in DID and related disorders (Nijenhuis et al. 2004, van der Hart et al. 2006). But the DES predates this distinction and does not map cleanly onto it, meaning it is often measuring an outdated or overly broad construct.

This definitional drift has affected all sides of the dissociation debate. Trauma-model advocates may use elevated DES scores in traumatized populations as evidence of dissociative pathology, even when the scores reflect normative absorption (Merckelbach et al. 2000). Skeptics may point to the DES’s correlations with fantasy proneness to argue that dissociation is a pseudoscientific or socially constructed phenomenon (Patihis and Lynn 2017, Merckelbach et al. 2020). In both cases, the assumption that the DES validly operationalizes trauma-based dissociation is rarely examined (Ross et al. 1990, Patihis and Place 2023).

Compounding the issue is the widespread misuse of the DES in research. Although it was originally developed as a screening tool, many studies treat it as a diagnostic or dimensional measure of dissociation, assigning it interpretive weight it was never designed to carry (Braude 2009). As a result, the DES has come to stand in for dissociation itself in much of the academic literature—cementing flawed assumptions, inflating the concept’s boundaries, and obscuring the structural dissociation at the core of DID.

In short, the overreliance on the DES has deeply muddied the academic waters. It has allowed individuals without dissociative disorders to be counted as dissociative, caused genuinely dissociative individuals to be overlooked, and perpetuated an outdated understanding of what dissociation actually is. Until research disentangles the conceptual slippage introduced by the DES, dissociation will remain an unstable and misapplied construct—its apparent contradictions more reflective of a flawed measurement tool than of the phenomenon itself.

Alternatives and Improvements#

A number of alternative tools have been developed to assess dissociation more comprehensively than the DES. Each comes with its own limitations, but several address specific conceptual and methodological concerns raised about the DES—particularly its conflation of absorption with dissociation, its reliance on overt and metaphorical language, and its vulnerability to misinterpretation in both clinical and non-clinical contexts. Below are some widely used alternatives, including structured interviews and self-report inventories, along with key modifications to the DES itself.

The Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (MID)#

The MID was explicitly developed to address the limitations of the DES, particularly its inability to distinguish between pathological dissociation and normative absorption (Dell 2006). It measures a broader and more granular set of dissociative symptoms, including amnesia, identity confusion, and internal voices. The MID is a self-report questionnaire, but requires clinician interpretation using a detailed scoring manual and algorithm, making it more time-intensive than the DES but substantially more accurate.

The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D)#

The SCID-D is a semi-structured clinical interview administered by trained professionals. It assesses dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, and identity alteration. Unlike the DES, it enables clinicians to detect symptoms the patient may not report on their own. It is considered one of the most reliable tools for diagnosing dissociative disorders in clinical settings and is often used in research requiring diagnostic confirmation (Steinberg 1994).

The Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS)#

The DDIS is a structured diagnostic interview that assesses dissociative disorders, borderline personality disorder, and other conditions commonly comorbid with dissociation (Ross et al. 1990). It is longer and more comprehensive than the DES and can detect diagnostic patterns that the DES misses due to its narrow symptom framing.

The Detachment and Compartmentalization Inventory (DCI)#

The Detachment and Compartmentalization Inventory (DCI) is a newer measure specifically designed to capture the mechanistic architecture of dissociation more precisely than the DES. The DCI is a self-report measure that focuses on assessing both detachment and compartmentalization as distinct but co-occurring dissociative processes (Butler et al. 2019). While it’s still undergoing evaluation, it offers a more nuanced model of dissociation and reflects a growing consensus that the structure of dissociation cannot be adequately captured by tools like the DES.

Modifications of the DES#

The DES-II is a minor rewording of the original scale intended to improve clarity, but it retains its original structure and conceptual flaws (Carlson and Putnam 1993). The DES-C modifies the original percentage-based scale into a relative comparison format, asking individuals to rate how often they experience symptoms compared to others. This shift reduces floor effects and improves score variance, particularly in general populations (Wright and Loftus 1999). Despite these adjustments, both remain brief, self-report measures that are easy to score, which accounts for their continued widespread use—despite serious concerns about what they actually measure.

Conclusions#

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) has played a foundational role in the empirical study and clinical assessment of dissociation since its development in the 1980s (Bernstein & Putnam 1986). Its ease of use and early psychometric validation led to widespread adoption across both clinical and research settings, where it quickly became the default instrument for measuring dissociative symptoms. Today, it remains one of the most frequently cited tools in the field.

Yet a closer examination reveals that the DES does not measure trauma-related dissociation with the precision it claims. Instead, it overrepresents overt, culturally recognizable symptoms—such as depersonalization and absorption—while failing to capture the covert, structurally compartmentalized dissociation now understood to be central to complex trauma disorders like DID (Dell 2006, Nijenhuis et al. 2004). Its reliance on metaphor-laden language and conscious self-report, along with its ambiguous 0–100% scale, introduces substantial measurement bias (Lyssenko et al. 2018).

The result is distortion at both ends of the spectrum: individuals with severe trauma-related dissociation may score deceptively low, while those without dissociative disorders—particularly those high in absorption, fantasy proneness, or imaginative immersion—may score high (Steele et al. 2017, Fisher 2017, Merckelbach et al. 2000). This misclassification has had far-reaching consequences, shaping research samples, prevalence estimates, and diagnostic theory in ways that conflate unrelated cognitive traits with pathological dissociation.

Although the field has gradually converged on a more rigorous conceptual framework—especially the distinction between detachment and compartmentalization (Holmes et al. 2005)—the DES remains anchored in an outdated model. It was built to reflect how dissociation was understood at the time, not how it is defined today. In doing so, it has profoundly muddied the academic waters. Findings across decades of studies may reflect properties of the instrument itself more than the construct it was intended to measure.

And the consequences have touched all sides of the debate. Proponents of the trauma model cite elevated DES scores in traumatized populations as evidence of dissociation, while skeptics invoke the same scores to argue that dissociation is merely fantasy proneness in disguise. Both rely on a measure that fails to distinguish between surface resemblance and structural pathology. The DES has not clarified the concept of dissociation—it has fractured it, embedding confusion into the foundations of dissociation research and leaving its central questions unresolved.