Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), which is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), is a Dissociative Disorder. This disorder is when a person has two or more distinct personalities that often control the person s behavior. This disorder has many controversies because of the fact that it is not scientifically proven.

One personality is usually restrained and rather dull while another one maybe very outgoing and obnoxious. A person can have many personalities; there is no set number. Each personality acts different and the original personality usually denies awareness of the others. There have been many cases where one of the personalities is violent. The person usually has names for each of the personalities.

There have been many movies made about Multiple Personality Disorder. The movie Primal Fear caught my interest. This movie really made me chance the way I feel about this particular disorder. Primal Fear was about a younger boy that had been physically abused and killed the person who had done this to him. He had to go to court and get tried for the murder. Through the whole movie he had two personalities, one was a sweet, innocent, quite boy and the other was the man that had killed this other man. This personality was a very cruel and loud man. The court had decided to let him go because he had this disorder. At the end, come to find out the boy was just acting and there was no sweet, innocent personality. Only one and that was the one who was a cruel, cold-hearted murder. I believe that this movie shows why they can not use this disorder in court systems. Because there is no way that you can prove that you have this disorder yet. The reason why this movie changed my views was because I felt bad for this person who was abused and had different personalities and if I was on the jury I would have let him go to. Now that I ve seen this movie I would not have let him go.

Oprah also had someone on her show that claimed that they had Multiple Personality Disorder. As I was watching this I thought wow, this guy really does have this. He was a normal everyday guy with a family, a home, and a job. He spoke of having no memories of any bad child hood moments. He had fourteen personalities; one was a little boy that likes to color. Seeing this really confused me cause I didn t know what to think, weather this disorder is a real disorder or if these people were just acting to get attention.

Psychologists have all different opinions of Multiple Personality Disorder. Many people think that it is caused from childhood memories, mainly bad ones where a child was physically, mentally, or emotionally abused. Most diagnosed people with Multiple Personality Disorder are women who have reportedly suffered from some type of abuse as children. Others say that these people are creating these personalities to cop with stress and life or to just repress memories. Skeptics say they are fantasy-prone, emotionally venerable, or they are formed from a therapist-patient interaction. Meaning that a person may act differently at times and they go see a psychiatrist and this therapist names each personality different so that will lead this person into believing that that have multiple personalities. Others also say that it is a natural thing and that you are born with it and that it is from heredity.

Seventy five percent of borderline personality disorders attempt suicide. It is also said that people with borderline personalities are just seeking attention. Along with women being prone to being diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, young children tent to experience this rather than adults. This is suprising to me because I have heard more adults stories rather that of young children. People with Multiple Personality Disorder typically have problems with mood swings, social skills, emotional states, and are often unable to maintain empathy for others.

The diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder starts off with the awareness of a person s childhood to see if there was any kind of abuse. There is no cure for Multiple Personality Disorder because no one really knows if it really exists except for the people who claim that they have it. Hopefully one day we can figure out this disorder and hopefully find a cure if it really does truly exist but until then there is no proof.