Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a psychological illness that has raised a lot of controversy and led researchers to question its validity. This disorder has been recorded as early as the 1800’s, but has recently been given more attention to by clinical researchers because of its diagnosis rates. The brain is a very complex organ and certain traumas can lead to the occurrence of this illness. Dissociative identity disorder is an illness in which individuals develop two or more very different personality states. In this paper, I will explain the causes of dissociative identity disorder, outline the symptoms, and elaborate on the

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a psychological condition in which a person will create one or more alternate identities. DID (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) is just one of three dissociative disorders. This disorder is set apart by the way the identities “switch” from one to another. Patients who suffer from dissociative identity disorder can often lead normal lives when diagnosed properly and treated accordingly; sometimes, they cannot. People suffering from dissociative identity disorder often have similar causes, symptoms, and treatments.

The first myth is that Dissociative Identity Disorder isn’t real. This is false because in 1980 it was released into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). The second myth is that Dissociative Identity Disorder is the same as Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic illness which does not involve alternate personalities or dissociation. The third myth is that people with Dissociative Identity Disorder are violent, but they are no more violent than “normal” people. The last myth says that Dissociative Identity Disorder is a personality disorder. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a dissociative disorder because instead of extreme emotional reactions with the world, Dissociative Identity Disorder people lose contact with themselves (Peisley, 2017, 1). Dissociative Identity Disorder has also been depicted in many movies. For example, Me, Myself, and Irene with Jim Carrey is about a 17-year veteran of the Rhode Island Police and without his medicine his personalities come out. This is false because no medications can “get rid” of the disorder. Another movie about Dissociative Identity Disorder is Frankie and Alice starring Halle Berry who is a black stripper seeking therapy from an imperious white racist. These two movies are other great examples of misconceptions of Dissociative Identity Disorder.As stated above, this disorder has many different misconceptions of the true meaning of Dissociative Identity Disorder that everybody needs to be aware

The mental illness called dissociative identity disorder or DID brings up many controversies in the world of psychology. Many psychologists have their doubts as to whether it is a "real" diagnosis or not. In the article "Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Controversial Diagnosis" the author goes into detail, providing facts that have been collected from many sources and gives information as to why it is such a controversial topic. The article answers many questions regarding the topic, providing the reader with enough information to understand why there is such a controversy surrounding this topic.

To begin to understand what happens within a person with dissociative identity disorder, it is important to first explain what the disorder is exactly. As defined by a forensic psychiatry and forensic psychology book: “Dissociative identity disorder (DID or multiple personality disorder) represents a ‘disruption of identity’ in which ‘two or more distinct personality states’ (also referred to as ‘alters’) occur. Further characteristics include: ‘marked discontinuity in the sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning.’ There may be gaps in recall of every day events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events inconsistent with ‘normal forgetting’”

Approximately 43 million Americans suffer from some kind of mental illness. Although this statistic suggests it’s a normal and accepted fact, the reality of the situation is that mental health does not get enough awareness as it should. This is because a lot of people believe that these ailments such as depression and bipolar disorder are “all in their heads.” Technically speaking, these people are not wrong since these things do occur in the brain, hence the name “mental” illness. One disorder that has grabbed my inner psychologist’s attention is dissociative identity disorder also known as DID. Dissociative identity disorder is a controversial disorder because psychologists are split on its existence and validity.

Multiple types of human behaviors have been explored and researched. Psychologists have created several perspectives in order to explain human behaviors. These perspectives can be applied to human behavior to comprehend the motive as to why the behaviors arise. DID (Dissociative identity disorder) is a misunderstood disorder. It was once called Multiple Personality Disorder. These people have several identities as a way to defend themselves after a traumatic event. Psychologists before did not understand the disorder and were confused by DID. Countless amounts of people have been incorrectly diagnosed and others believed they had been possessed, but due to research and psychological perspectives, we are able to understand why this disorder exists and how to treat it. Psychological perspectives were created in order to explain all types of mental illnesses and various behaviors. They have helped psychologists diagnose patients in order to correctly treat them. Dissociative identity disorder has been studied continuously by psychologists in order to find the rationale behind the disorder, using the psychological perspectives psychodynamic and biological.

This paper will discuss dissociative identity disorder which is one of several dissociative disorders. Dissociative identity disorder has not been around as long as many other mental disorders, the earliest cases of persons reporting dissociative identity disorder symptoms were not recorded until the 1790’s. (Frey R.J., Ph.D. Cataldo L.J., RN, Ed.D. Longe J.L., 2015.). Even though it has not been around for that long psychiatrists are debating whether dissociative identity disorder was previously misdiagnosed and underreported, or currently over diagnosed. (Frey et al 2015.). Psychiatrists may not find out wither if it is over, under or misdiagnosed but people need to know what DID is. People also should

Dissociative personality disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is an illness that is characterized by two or more distinct sub-personalities that repeatedly take control of the patient’s conscience and behavior. Each unique personality may exhibit behavior patterns, memories, and social relationships exclusive to that personality. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, the occurrence of DID is in one percent of the population of the United States (National Alliance of Mental Illness, n.d.). There is a rough estimate of 316 million people in the United States according to the census in 2013. Rendering to this statistic, 3.16 million people have Dissociative Identity Disorder in the United States.

My topic of choice for this research paper is Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. This appellation is rather new; therefore, most are more familiar with the disorder's older, less technical name: Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD. When first presented with the task of selecting a topic on which to center this paper, I immediately dismissed Dissociative Identity Disorder (which for the sake of brevity will be referred to as DID for the remainder of this paper) as a viable topic due to the sheer scope of the disorder. However after an exhaustive examination of other prospective topics, I found myself back at my original choice. There are several reasons why I chose DID. The foremost of which is the widespread fascination of this

Dissociative identity disorder, (Weiten, Dunn and Hammer, 2015) “involves the coexistence in one person of two or more largely complete, and usually very different, personalities.” This disorder is also referred to multiple personality disorder. Individuals with this particular disorder feel that they have numerous identities. For example, each personality have a different name, character traits and physical abilities. Transitions from one personality to the other can occur very suddenly.

Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple personality is a mental disorder, comorbidity of psychosis, childhood trauma and dissociation (1). It’s a complex chronic disorder characterized by the identification of multiple severe psychological syndromes of unexplainable and recurrent amnesia, the ongoing coexistence or the alternating of two or more subjectively independent identities, and depersonalization. (1,5) Dissociative Identify Disorder in majority of the occasion transpire as a mechanism for the patient to cope with post traumatic stress of childhood abuses but not apparent until adulthood. (4) Therefore, those two are inevitably linked through interviews and experiment on patients diagnosed with DID (2,4).

“The average patient with DID has been in the mental healthcare delivery system an average of 6.8 years and has received more than three other diagnoses, reflecting either misdiagnoses or comorbidities, before receiving an accurate diagnosis of DID” (Kluft 2005). This means that DID can be hard to diagnose right away . One of the scholarly article examines Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) from a diagnostic perspective in an attempt to produce a definitive categorization for the controversial disorder. The article begins by acknowledging the controversy about DID by stating that many clinicians have doubts about whether it even exists. Still, the disorder does appear in the DSM-IV and most recent addition, the DSM-5, so it is respected by American Psychiatric Association. The diagnostic criteria for DID in the DSM-IV requires the display of several core personalities that are totally unaware of one another. Formally this is how DID is recognized, and its place within the DSM-IV at all bears witness to the genuine nature of the disorder. Next, the article discusses one of the more popular conceptions of DID: that it is a “defensive response that results naturally from continuous and

Dissociative identity disorder has been around for decades and is one of the most misunderstood and controversial diagnoses in the field of psychology because it has been sensationalized in books, films, and media. DID is a disorder in which the patient may have multiple personalities or identities. Because DID is so popular in the media, some believe the disorder may just be an act or a way to get mass attention. Others believe that DID is simply a coping mechanism and a way for a person to dissociate themselves from situations that may be too stressful for their dominant personality to handle.

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