to answer your question of what it is in laymans terms I will need to go back a step. I will try and break it down for you though.

at birth every human being has a "personality".

if you have ever wheld or saw a new born baby what do you see. you may see one that cries all the time, and looks very unhappy, uncomfortable, or you may see one that smiles, enjoys being held, and is calm.

when you are with your friends are you shy, or outgoing, do you smile and laugh at jokes, get angry when something makes you mad, do you have your favorite kinds of clothes and food you like, do you have any mannerisms like twirling your hair, other habits.....

all of these things are called characteristics / in other words having a personality, everything that is you how you walk talk behave all of it is called having personality.

now that you have the basics of what a personality is the next step is answering your question of "what is Structural Dissociation in laymans terms?"

the full title is....

Structural Dissociation Model. Its not a disorder kind of thing. its a therapy technique to understand yourself and work with your treatment providers. think of it like CBT or DBT or Art therapy. Its in that category of things.

In Structural Dissociation Model everything has an order to it (structure) and that order has to do with how you dissociate, when you dissociate and what to do about it.

In Structural Dissociation the first orderly step is that it runs on the belief system that everyone is born with normal "parts of self" (fancy phrase for your characteristics that make up your personality.)

example

when I am happy I am showing people the part of me that is the emotion of happiness.

Happiness is an emotion right so in Structural Dissociation Model this normal part of me is called EP (in other words an Emotional Part of me)

now lets take it to the next step sometimes when something happens a person doesnt let on that they are feeling emotional....they just appear to look normal even though they may be feeling very angry.

example....

Yesterday I was feeling frustrated over something to do with one of my children. but instead of showing my child I was losing my patience and was frustrated I appeared to be the way I always am, happy and smiling, here let me help you....

In Structural Dissociation Model this is called ANP (Apparently Normal Part of myself)

Anyone whether they have a mental disorder or not can have lots of Emotional Parts and Apparently Normal Parts of their self...

Example

in one day I can show people how happy I am, how sad I am and react out of frustration or anger or excitement. And I can because of many different reasons be feeling one way and appearing to be normal on the outside.

now lets add some dissociation into it....

lets take two EP's (Happy and Sadness) and one ANP (looking like I am normal even though I may be either happy or sad inside)

A death in the family may make me feel very very sad, so sad that I start dissociating (unconsciously numbing, spacing out and a mental sense that my hand has no feeling in it that it belongs to me, I know that hand really is mine it just feels like its not)

instead of letting someone know how I am feeling i either act out because I am so sad (EP) or I appear to be perfectly normal (ANP)

in Structural Dissociation Model dissociating like this happens in the same pattern so a therapist is actually able to make a chart of how you dissociate and when you are showing your emotional parts of yourself because of dissociating or when you are showing your appearing to be normal part of yourself because of your dissociating.

in this Structural Dissociation Model a therapist notices which parts of your personality are the priority to work on. if you are acting out aggressively or suicidal or self injuring those emotional parts of your self get worked on first to stabilize you, sometimes even to the point of hospitalization. but most of the time this therapy model can be worked on in your sessions where you will be charting what parts of you are emotional and why sometimes you appear to be normal on the outside vs how you are feeling inside.

keep in mind that this is different than being DID. Structural dissociation model is not a disorder kind of thing its a therapy model that helps to chart and explain your problems.

the disorder (fancy word for problem) is the dissociating and you do so in a patterned / orderly way so this therapy model will help you to understand yourself better.

This therapy model will help you because your EP's and ANP's are so defined that you can actually chart your personality characteristics so that you can see when you are acting out emotionally when you dissociate, or when you are appearing to be normal when you dissociate, and why.

this therapy technique helps with many different kinds of mental disorders, here where I am its used mostly with people with PTSD, Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. my therapist and I use this for my Bipolar disorder because I have very distinct cycling phases, and for my PTSD problems but we did not use it for my DID because my Alternate personalities were not EP's and ANP's. with dissociative Identity Disorders alters have whats called sense of agency, they all function with in their sense of agency just like normal human beings. though they may be emotional they dont just get emotional. example my Rainy alter was the holder of anything depressive but she was able to play, eat, drink, go tot he bathroom, curl up on a sofa with a blanket and watch tv. Because my DID alters were not the kind that fit this therapy model we didnt use it.

in fact in my location ................many.............. treatment providers here where I am dont use this therapy model with DID, they instead use things like grounding, mindfullness and learning how to take care of problems with out relying on dissociation.

hope this has answered your question and helped you to understand it better.