Multiple Personality Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as “multiple personality disorder”, is a mental disorder in which a

Multiple Personality Disorders (MPD), or what has been re-classified, Dissociative Idenitfy Disorder (DID), is a deliberating and frightening illness for the DID individual; as well as their friends and family. The meaning of DID (Dissoiative Idenity Disorder) usually means that a person has more than two self-states or identities, which often times appear like entirely different personalities. When one is under the control of one identity, the person usually is unable to remember some of the events, but is able to keep other personalities in control.

Many psychologists don't even attempt to define personality. For example, Carroll (2003) gives the following explanation for an alter personality: "The "alters" are said to occur spontaneously and involuntarily, and function more or less independently of each other." This really gives no insight as to what an alter personality truly is; it only describes what an alter does. Piper attempts to explain alter personalities in stating "each personality has its own set of personality traits, such as language abilities, style of speech, value systems, and cognitive styles." This gives a little clearer picture of what a personality consists of, but it's not quite complete. One reason many are skeptical about MPD could be that no one really understands what an alter personality is, so it is therefore hard to believe they exist.

Multiple personality Disorder, (MPD) was first recognized in the 1700’s but was not understood so therefore was soon forgotten. Many cases showed up during the years, but was overlooked, or misdiagnosed as either schizophrenia or psychosis. Many in the medical profession did not believe that a person could have more than one personality in a body, unknowingly, even after the 1950’s. In 1993, records show that three to five thousand people were being treated for MPD, compared to the hundred cases reported ten years earlier. The disease is commonly found in adults who were abused mentally, physically, emotionally, and or sexually as children, between birth to eight years of age. The child uses a process called disassociation to separate himself/herself from the abusive situation. This is when the child makes up a personality to take control of the mind and body. During abuse, usually there is a personality for every emotion and feeling when the abuse is taking place. Symptoms of the disease include: amnesia, hallucinations, depression, and suicidal thoughts, and tendencies, and there can be anywhere from two to over a hundred different personalities. Usually each personality will fall into one of the following categories: host, core, child, teenager, artistic, adult, animals, intimate members, self-helpers, persecutor, rescuer and helper. The child is usually under the age of twelve, with according behaviors,

The first thing that I learned is what normally causes MPD. MPD is normally caused by extreme abuse and trauma. Some other causes could be extreme disasters or an extremely important person lost at a young age. The mind doesn’t know how to handle this extreme trauma, and it tries to take it out of the person’s life. Another thing this book taught me was that there are memory blocks between the personalities. With the little bit that I knew about MPD I never thought that there were memory blocks. I always thought that the person knew that they had it, and they would get into fights with those personalities. The person could live their whole life with MPD, and never even know that they have

This essay will look at Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and its portrayal in the media. DID was formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).This essay will cover the symptoms of DID, the criteria used for diagnosis, causes and triggers of disorder, how the disorder is portrayed in the media and the reality of the disorder for sufferers.

Sexual molestation, beating, neglect, burning, and verbal abuse. All of these horrible happenings are believed to be linked to a condition known as Multiple personality disorder (MPD). Multiple personality disorder, also known as dissociative identity disorder, is a mental illness in which a person has two or more identities or personalities. Single personalities randomly take control of the individual's behavior. Usually, the sufferer gives the personalities their own names. These multiple personalities almost always have characteristics that greatly differ from the person's primary identity. A person with this disorder always experiences some amount of amnesia. Most of the time the individual forgets

Psychiatrics describe “Multiple Personality Disorder [often referred to as MPD][as] a chronic and recurrent emotional illness. A person with MPD plays host to two or more personalities. Each identity has its own unique style of viewing and understanding the world and may have its own name” (“Multiple Personality Disorder”). Renamed as Dissociative Identity Disorder in 1994 by the American Psychiatric Association, this disorder has been believed to be a myth by many, especially with the idea of its rarity (Lilienfeld). However, as psychiatrics have described, the disorder includes multiple personalities which have proven to be genuine and real, not a myth. Furthermore, with the information collected, research shows that about 20,000 cases have been recorded between 1980-1990 in the United States alone. The individuals who

Multiple Personality Disorder, or MPD, which is also referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder, is a mental disorder in which sufferers experience several personalities. All of these subpersonalities, also called alters, exist within one person along a central, primary personality. Each personality has its own memories, characteristics, behavior, thoughts, and can have perceived age and appearance that distinguishes one personality from the next. People with this disorder may exist with two personalities, one primary and one alter, or they may exist with more than a dozen coexisting subpersonalities, making thoughts and everyday life tremendously more difficult for the victim and the people they associate with. Multiple personality disorder derives from several things. First, psychological egos are poorly coordinated due to the stress on sense of self in the mind of a person with the disorder, causing alternative personalities to develop as a form of self defense (Kelley and Kodman 167). Second, it is compelled after experiencing

Imagine waking up in a new house, town, city, even state and not knowing how you got there. Now add onto that thought of forgetting almost a year of your life because someone else, or something, has taken over your body. That is just a look into dissociative disorders in general. Dissociative Disorders are ‘extreme distortions in perception and memory” (Terwilliger 2013). Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is often the most misunderstood dissociative disorder of them all. It has always been somewhat of a mystery. Seeing videos of the disorder can really give you an insight on what happens with the person who suffer from it. Almost everyone in the

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is defined as “a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in—and alternately take control of—an individual”. In 1994, the name of the disorder was changed to reflect a better understanding of the condition. DID is characterized by fragmentation, not by the growth of separate identities.

Dissociative identity disorder is a type of dissociative disorder. A dissociative disorder can be explained as an individual becoming dissociative with his or her sense of self. These disorders disturb both memory and identity and usually have a psychological cause. Dissociative identity disorder is a disorder in which two or more identities or personality states are present in one individual. These identities alternatively take control of the individual. This causes frequent gaps in memory, which are believed to be caused by the other personality. When one personality takes control, the other one does not remember anything that took place. There has been continuing research about what causes the disorder. It is believed that the disorder is caused by intense physical or sexual trauma (Dissociative Disorders). The disorder was once called multiple personality disorder until 1994. This changed to reflect a better understanding of the

Dissociative Identity Disorder can be difficult to diagnosis as mentioned before. However, a scale has been developed to help a professional with their diagnosis of individuals that may suffer from this mental illness. There have been many studies conducted to test the reliability and validity of this scale. The scale is referred to as The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) and was developed to help measure dissociation in individuals. The Dissociative Experiences Scale is a twenty-eight item self-report questionnaire. How this scale works is that the individual is asked to mark on a line to indicate where they fall on the continuum for each specific question. After the experiment, the scale was able to show high rates in both reliability and validity. The scale had good test-retest supporting its reliability and showed significant correlations supporting the scale’s validity. Thus, The Dissociative Experiences Scale was able to distinguish between individuals with a dissociative identity, such as Multiple Personalities, and individuals without a dissociative identity (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986).

According to psychcentral.com, 1 to 3 percent of people speciffically teens have multiple personality disorder(MPD). It is critical that we begin to understand this issue because everyday more and more teenagers all over the U.S. are diagnosed with MPD/DID. MPD/DID is an important issue facing teens today because of the continuous mental and physical abuse. Society needs to be aware of the issue as well as ways in which we can help those who are abused at a young age. Although it may not be possible to prevent MPD/DID, it might be helpful to begin treatment in teens has soon has they begin to have symptoms. Also immediate intervention following a traumatic event can help reduce the risk of a person developing MPD/DID.

Imagine waking up and not knowing what you had just done; imagine having seven different people living inside of your head all competing to become you. This is a daily struggle for those who are suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. There are many misconceptions in the United States about Multiple Personality Disorder. First off, it is an actually disease, that cannot be just “turned off”. It is generally brought on by a traumatic event in that person’s youth. More often than not it is seen in those who were sexually abused by a family member. The brain has to devise a coping mechanism to interact with their predators when they must see them in front of other people. They tend to compartmentalize and hide these events and emotions causing them to morph into personas they take on when stressful circumstances arise.