I just read a fascinating article in the New York Times - Me, Me, Me and My Therapist. It’s a first-hand account of a woman with Disassociation Identity Disorder, better known as Multiple Personality Disorder.
MPD is one of those things that’s great sensationalized by the media even though it’s extraordinarily rare in real life. I actually was under the impression that most cases of MPD are simply misdiagnosed bipolar or something similar, but I guess I was wrong.
She has many personas, at least two of them six year old girls, and she struggles with the concept of people existing when she can’t see them. There’s also an interesting bit about atmospheric versions of people, who follow her even when the people themselves are not present. Just though some of you interested in psychology here might enjoy reading it.
Multiple Personality Disorder does not exist. The End.
The so-called disorder came into pop psychology prominence through the case of Chris Costner Sizemore who had several works based on her life - the best known of those was The Three Faces of Eve. It turned out to be a fake case that destroyed many careers just like other superficially related mental illnesses like psychogenic fugue disorder and even recovered memory syndrome. They were (and still are) complete bullshit.
My academic background is in psychology and behavioral neuroscience. Claims like these tick me off because they discredit the whole field when, in reality, it is is just a few quacks that actually believe them. Such claims peaked in the 1970’s and 80’s and I thought we were mostly done with them now but I guess not because there is a new generation out there.
Don’t get me wrong. I am sure she is really mentally ill with something. Only crazy people claim stuff like that but it is never for the reasons stated. Until she gets a real diagnosis, hers can be best summed up by this Far Side coffee mug.
Fair enough. I have no experience in the field of psychology, so I’ll trust you on this one - I’d heard about it being fake, which is why the article struck me as interesting. Hopefully the woman gets the help she needs, whatever it is she has.
Nobody anywhere ever represses any traumatic memories? :dubious:
No, they might not be 100% reliable, or even verifiable, and yes false ones may be induced by unethical therapists, but a blanket debunking seems a bit strong.
I have one verified example from my own life-the father of a young woman I had started dating told me to steer clear of her, or else-and I completely wiped it from my memory, was only told about it years later by one of my relatives.
It is interesting in a way - just not in the way the article was written. Learning why some people claim such things is at least as interesting and useful as anything else.
I was going to say that for someone to “fake” having multiple personalities over any real period of time would have to indicate they had some kind of mental illness or disorder.
Memories aren’t as stagnant as people like to believe. They are almost completely unlike a computer hard drive where you can go back a reconstruct a copy of a lost ‘file’ given the right tools. Memories get spontaneously created, recreated and even invented without conscience effort all the time for everyone. You may sometimes be able to reconstruct a partially lost memory by seeing something like a photograph but it then becomes a new, reconstructed memory rather than a perfect resurrection of an old one.
Therapists don’t even need to be unethical to create false memories in their patients. Even certain lines of questioning, no matter how well intended, influences how those memories are reported and can even cause spontaneous generation of new ones describing things that never happened without anyone knowing that the report isn’t accurate. That is the really scary thing. It takes no ill-intent or conscience action to create, recreate or destroy memories. That phenomenon effects not only therapy but also personal relationships and eye witness testimony in court cases.
That doesn’t mean that you memory of the event you just described is wrong. It may very well be and I know you are sure that it is but there is no way to know for sure without outside verification. I have had family members that were absolutely certain that I participated in certain events, including elaborate vacations that I not only did not attend but couldn’t have because I was far away when they happened. It is easy to prove simple facts to people but they will not like it if their mental narrative rejects the version you are showing them even with hard evidence.
To show another side of it I’ll share that some of mine weren’t repressed, they were…unclaimed? I knew that “X” had happened to me, was a part of my personal history. I knew that “X” sometimes happens and is called (fill in the blank). But I didn’t put 2 + 2 together, recognizing/acknowledging, to the point of coming up blank when asked for an example.
I have dissociative episodes due to bipolar disorder. I can see once someone achieves a certain level of detachment they can develop other distinct personalities. When I think of how easily I was able to establish an online identity with a totally different personality and spent so much time BEING that personality . . . and then the way I just took to my avatar in Second Life I feel like it’s not as impossible as some people here claim. Then again some people believe autism and ADHD aren’t real either.
Yes I should. They probably already know it anyway though because plenty of respected clinicians and researchers have told them the same thing repeatedly. The DSM is not as authoritative as it lets on and has made plenty of mistakes. It is compiled by committee and the members that revise it certainly don’t all agree on all criteria or even the existence or lack of existence of some disorders. Disassociation Identity Disorder has long been one of the most controversial disorders listed in the DSM. Most biological based clinicians and researchers either do not believe that it exists at all or that it exists but not in the form presented. However, there are a very vocal group of therapists that depend on it existing because much of their practice is based on it so it gets included to appease them. Psychology/Psychiatry is political just like anything else.
Still don’t believe me? Here is an article by Allen Frances, former chairperson of the DSM Task Force and a former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University School of Medicine. He will straight up tell you that it doesn’t exist.
"Having seen hundreds of patients who claimed to house multiple personalities, I have concluded that the diagnosis is always (or at least almost always) a fake, even though the patients claiming it are usually (but not always) sincere.
In every single instance, I discovered that the alternate personalities had been born under the tutelage of an enthusiastic and naive therapist, or in imitation of a friend, or after seeing a movie, or upon joining a multiples’ chat group – or some combination. It was most commonly a case of a suggestible and gullible therapist and a suggestible and gullible patient influencing each other in the creation of new personalities. None of the purported cases had had a spontaneous onset and none was the least bit convincing."
I should have also included this because it addresses why the disorder is still listed in the DSM despite the fact that it doesn’t exist:
"MPD presented an insoluble conundrum for me as Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force. I was convinced that it was an iatrogenically inspired diagnosis inappropriately inflicted on vulnerable patients by the poorly trained therapists who came away from their silly weekend workshops armed with an MPD hammer that seemed to fit every patient nail. My own inclination was to wise up dumb therapists and protect vulnerable patients by simply omitting MPD from the DSM.
But my hands were tied. We had laid down strict rules requiring high evidentiary standards before any change could be made in DSM-IV. This was intended to prevent arbitrary changes by containing the diagnostic exuberance that typified the experts who were engaged in revising the manual. Any suggestion to expand the system required compelling evidence. But this sword cut both ways. Any change to reduce the system – like eliminating MPD – required equally compelling evidence."
I think the first time I really became aware of and was curious about Multiple Personality Disorder was when Kenneth Bianchi claimed his “alternate” personality Steve Walker committed the Hillside Strangler murders.
There are many videos on YouTube of adult people who claim to have many different personalities. I think the ones that bother me the most are those that are acting out their “child” alters on video, accompanied by the little girl or little boy voices. To me that just seems so fake.
Interesting. What do you call a person who dissociates when there is a perceived threat? That threat is usually involving recommended care. This is not MPD, as there is only one alternate. The person thinks it was medically induced. I’m not the shrink here, but as care provider, would use all the tools I can find available for a person who needs four hours in clinic, mostly spent waiting for the appointed person to return to the body.
There was a local bank robber who tried this as defense…didn’t work…he’s in jail, all of him.
I’m not a shrink either, but this seems to assume that there really are separate personalities in one body, and that they can leave and return. Is it often a treatment tool to play along with a delusion?
The linked article is interesting. I’m speaking way outside any area where I should be speaking here, but it seems to me there’s a consistent pattern to the symptoms she’s reporting, which she herself isn’t aware of, and that lends credibility to what she’s saying. The pattern is, all the symptoms seem to be tied to understand where a person is–including herself. She hears a voice in her head, which, since it’s in her head she ought to identify as her own voice, but because she fails to understand where she is, she doesn’t understand that the voice is her. As well, when she thinks about her therapist, she fails to understand where he is (i.e., away, not in the same room) and so is able to think of him as being right there with her (though he must be ghostly since she can’t see him).
Ditto the fascination with trying to understand what it means for him to go away on a trip.
I know it’s possible in experimental settings to mess with people’s sense of self-location–making them think animated objects across the room are part of their body or making them feel like they’ve somehow jumped out of their skin and are now behind themselves. Could this be related to that?
This is a rather funny quote in that the take away seems to be that the ‘experts who were engaged in revising the manual’ tend to go apeshit and make up all kinds of diagnostics criteria unless otherwise constrained. That is hardly a comforting thought. Nor is the fact that some psychologist disagree and still believe DID exists.