She was 33 years old when he first visited the psychiatric clinic of the German doctor Bruno Waldvogel accompanied by her guide dog, as he usually did for more than a decade.
Had lost complete vision had for 13 years, after suffering a traumatic accident about which the doctors did not provide details.
At the time, she was diagnosed with cortical blindness, caused - according to his medical report - the brain damage caused by the accident.
But the reasons that led to Waldvogel clinic did not have to do with blindness.
The protagonist of this story, whose initials are BT, also suffered from dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality) since before the traumatic event.
Different personalities"She had more than 10 personalities," says article signed by Dr. Hans Waldvogel and Strasburger, medical assistant professor of psychology of Psychological Medicine Institute in Munich, which also treated the patient.
"She changed identity spontaneously. In every personality adopted name, age, gender, different attitudes and temperament," says the article, recently published in the journal Psych Journal.
"In some cases, the patient spoke even different languages, sometimes only English, German and other sometimes mixed the two languages."
According to the medical examination, the patient had lived some years during his childhood in an English-speaking country. So knew the language.
"The most surprising thing was when, in the fourth consultation, embodying the identity of an adolescent boy, she suddenly regained vision," he told BBC Professor Strasburger.
"The patient recognized a few words in the title of a magazine. At first they were just letters, but then very quickly began to visualize objects until they reached regain sight altogether."
Doctors began using therapeutic hypnosis techniques, and visual ability to BT "extended to other identities or personality states," according to published work.
Blindness 'psychological'"It's amazing how this patient is able to change from one state to another, so that she sometimes sees and sometimes not. It is the first case that we know these characteristics," Strasburger said.
According to him, none of his colleagues had heard of something like that.
Waldvogel and Strasburger came to the conclusion that the first diagnosis was wrong: the blindness of BT It was not cortical, because it was due to head trauma caused by the accident.
He was a "psychological" blindness, or "Psychogenic disturbance of vision," as described by Sigmund Freud in 1910.
"There is something so rare, it sometimes happens and is a concept that is known for many years," said Strasburger.
"What had never happened so far is that a person could be blind and see at the same time, according to the personality to adopt."
According to the doctor, the patient is no longer in treatment and its current status is that of a blind person who, from time to time, can see.
Some of the most interesting findings of the work, according to Strasburger, refer to "implications of brain ability to control the flow of visual information".
"People with blindness brain damage hardly recover sight, and if they do, it takes many years," he said.
"The fact that BT have suddenly regained vision is very revealing."
The brain, the great unknownFor doctors, the case shows that mental disorders can trigger physiological effects such as psychological blindness
In this case, in order to identify the brain activity of the patient, the doctors inserted electrodes on the back of his head, in order to measure the response of the central nervous system to sensory stimuli, which is known as "visual evoked potential" (ENP ).
"Usually, the information travels from the eye to the thalamus (in the center of the brain) and then to the back, in the visual cortex," says the doctor.
However, psychiatrists have found, thanks to this technique, the information was "locked" in the brain BT and did not reach its final destination.
"This case shows how the brain is able to block information and also reveals that there is a biological basis of psicógenos visual disorders and multiple personalities."
The expert says that many people believe that people with psychological blindness "pretend not to see," but it is not the case because, in fact, "there are mechanisms in the brain that keep you."
According to doctors, the case of B.T. shows that the differences between their states of personality "vary according to the sensory information and have biological foundations".
"Right now you and I are having a conversation you have your personality and I have mine but they are, somehow invented:.. Were created in some part of our brain," says Strasburger.
Source: BBC
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