Dissociation

[Mahiqun]

I was reading quite a lot of psychological literature right now but I don't think I'm fully getting this term, at least as far as considered to personality disorders. If for example the person you know is NPD or BPD and is sweet as honey till you to what he/she want and makes terrible fuss or becomes hysterical when you don't is that really dissociation or just poorly controlled manipulative behavior(it was named dissociation in the book)? Or if a businessman has a few "false faces" to wear to make a good deal? Or if someone is peaceful, quiet and quite shy in everyday's life but when she goes to the gig, she is one of the craziest person in the crowd and can tell off the big guy who started to punch the people around and he calms down? does it qualify as dissociation especially when it is willing and under control?

Liebert & Spiegler's "Personality: Strategies and issues" says that dissociation is to some level adaptive mechanism granting plasticity of reaction. But I'm not getting where is simple adjusting to the social role or conning people and pretending for personal profit and where we can speak about dissociation.
Thanks for help.

[voodoo scientist]

People are generally not consistent in their behavior. None of the situations mentioned really indicate pathology, unless maybe taken in a context that isn't revealed here. Lots of people play nice to get things what they want, then throw a fuss if they don't - granted, they're mostly children, but there are a lot of children and childish souls out there. A businessman having a few false faces isn't really pathology so much as a job requirement, and shy peaceful types letting go under certain conditions is really a lot more common than those types like to let on.

[Mahiqun]

So does term "dissociation" refer only to pathology ? Or it is like with narcism when some level is necessary to normal functioning, it's just when it's on too high level there's problem? If you take the general hypothesis of dissociative identity disorder, it's a bit like you have a few schemes of behavior and you're starting to smother within you this "bad" or "strange" one and deny that this feelings and reactions are really yours. And I noticed in the book I mentioned before and Lorna Smith Benjamin's book "Interpersonal Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders"the term of dissociation used as the significant change of behavior- in this second book particularly in description of BPD- that they dissociate whenthey think they don't get enough care and become aggressive and abusive and NPD about their "false ego".