Dissociative Identity Disorder In The Movie Split

In the movie

Kevin Crumb's distinct personalities all show how child abuse can have mentally scarring affects by showing how some children are forced to develop defense mechanisms to survive their situation. They also show how abuse can affect a child long term and turn them into a

Though the average of personalities within those suffering with dissociative identity disorder (DID) between eight and thirteen, there have been cases where a single person harbored more than one hundred varying personalities within themselves. DID, recently referred to as multiple personality disorder, is a rare condition in which the affected individual has two or more prominent states of personality. The person with this condition has a fragmented identity, rather than simply the growth of different personalities, and often suffers from a series of undesirable and frightening symptoms. In addition to this, the disorder is most often caused by abuse that the person experienced at some point in their past. In the novel Into the Wild by Jon

Dissociative identity disorder was also known as multiple personality disorder until it was renamed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1994. This disorder was first seriously studied by Pierre Janet of France in 1883. DID has been recognized since the late 1800s but has recently in the last year seen a spike in interest from the public. Many give credit of the newfound interest to a recent movie highlighting the disorder; “In Shyamalan's latest film, "Split," actor James McAvoy plays the villain, a man with 24 personalities who abducts and torments three girls in a windowless bunker. The film opened at No. 1 this weekend with more than $40 million in domestic sales” (Nedelman, Michael. “What Shyamalan's 'Split' gets

The character that I chose to write about is Kevin Wendell Crumb from the movie “Split”. Kevin suffers from dissociative identity disorder which causes him to experience 23 different personalities within his mind. Dissociative identity disorder used to be called multiple personality disorder and is defined as a person’s identity that is fragmented into two or more distinct personalities. The most common cause for dissociative identity disorder is severe abuse whether it be physical, emotional and sexual or a mix of all three. The personalities are said to live their own life, have their own characteristics and memories, when the personalities switch there is no recollection of the memories that the other personalities had. Gaps of time

Robert Oxnam published an autobiography called A Fractured Mind in order to educate more people about his illness and to introduce a deeper understanding of Dissociative Identity Disorder. In an article written by Bruce Weber of the New York Times, Oxnam explained how writing the book was a timely challenge because each of his alter personalities wrote their chapter of the story in a first-person narrative (Weber, 2005). The reader learns about Dissociative Identity Disorder by being introduced to Oxnam’s alters, watching their interrelationships develop and recognizing the integration of his fragmented mind.

The movie Split is an American thriller that is centered around the fictional character known as Kevin Crumb. Kevin suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder which leads to him being known as many other names. Kevin is also commonly known as Hedwig, a young boy, Dennis, a perverted man who suffers from OCD, and Patricia, an older classy woman. These are only some of the personalities Kevin has taken on. These personalities began to develop young in Kevin’s life as a defense mechanism to help protect him from his abusive mother. Kevin has many other personalities, some of which are evil. These evil personalities are what give the movie its thriller genre. Kevin kidnaps a girl, and she experiences all of these different personalities until a new one emerges that dominates over the others. “The beast” as it is referred to is the one that causes all the scare factors in the movie. When Kevin sees the damage that his other personalities have done, he is horrified and scared because he does not know how to control himself.

The film ‘Split’ revolves around Kevin Wendell Crumb’s story, a man diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder which resulted from the psychological, emotional, and physical abuse he suffered from childhood. Kevin (the original personality) claims that he has 23 other personalities “living” inside his body and each of them has distinct characteristic. Some of his “identities” shown on the movie were Dennis (the serious one who suffers from OCD and is extremely protective of Kevin); Hedwig (the naughty 9-year old boy); Patricia (the cross-dresser) Barry (the leader of the group, decides who gets to take over Kevin’s body), Jade (the diabetic one) and the “Beast” (his 24th identity- Kevin and Hedwig’s “protector”). Aside from the abuse he suffered from his parents, Kevin was also a victim of bullying when he was a kid. He’ employed at Philadelphia zoo and has no close relationships with anyone other than his psychiatrist.

     Sometimes people undergo traumatic experiences in their lives that are either physical or mental and maybe even a combination of both. If the experience was so intense, and so horrible, that the mind didn’t want to remember it, or possibly didn’t know how to deal or cope with it, then that one experience has the power to split a person’s mind into “another personality”. If this happens, the other personality or personalities come out when a person who has MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) is put in a situation that he/she doesn’t know how to handle or feels that the other personality can handle it better. People suffering from MPD also have the risk of developing some

On January 20th 2017, a movie named Split came into theatre’s. The film is about a man named Kevin who has 23 personalities. This film was meant to demonstrate dissociative identity disorder. The film demonstrates Kevin as a middle age man majority of the time, who is very polite and horrified about what his other personalities do. Some of his other personalities take over sometimes such as Dennis who at the time was the person who abducts the girls. Other personality is Hedwig who is a nine-year-old boy and Patricia who is seen to be very cold and precise. In this film psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher is a key component who stays submerged in Kevin because he has introduced all 23 personalities to her. The film starts out with the introduction

The psychological disorder which was illustrated in Fight Club was Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Multiple Personality disorder, meaning that their consciousness is disrupted as well as their memory and identity (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, & Nock, 2014). The narrator, who halfway through the movie we discover his name is Jack, is the one suffering from this psychological illness. The narrator was quite abnormal as his behavior changed drastically as he first struggles with insomnia, which could be considered a small issue, and then later ends up partaking in a criminal offense group and even murders a man. Another odd scene was when the viewers began realizing that he is actually suffering from an illness which occurred when he began hitting himself and acting as if someone (Tyler) was punching him.

In The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) dissociative identity disorder is diagnosed when a person displays at least two personalities of a differing, cohesive, and definitive nature. The disorder is marked by thoughts that repeatedly intrude on a person during their waking life, affecting their “sense of self” (APA, 2013, p.292). DID involves a marked change in one’s own body being one’s own, as well as changes in perception including “derealization and depersonalization” (APA, 2013, p.292). All of these criteria seem to be met as the narrator describes the shift in his life away from a single identity, to one where he comes to realization that he has been actually displaying two distinct and different personalities. But, what of

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

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’”

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