Multiple Personalities

Multiple Personalities

• Multiple personalities is a rare mental disorder in which an individual's personality appears to be separated by two or more specific personalities, all being connectable to that of a normal individual.

Incidence

• Statistics show that the rate of DID occurrences are roughly .01% to 1% of the general population.

-More than 1/3 of people say that they feel as if they are watching themselves in a movie at times, and 7% of the population may have undiagnosed dissociative disorder.

Causes

Symptoms According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, symptoms include "the presence or two or more distinct identities or personality traits"that alternate control of the individuals behavior, accompanied by the inability to recall personal information beyond what is expected through normal forgetfulness.

-Amnesia

-Depersonalization

-Derealization

-Identity Disturbances

Diagnosis

There is not real way to determine whether or not a person has DID. Many physicians have different outlooks on what DID is and what determines if a patient has the disorder or not. Most are misdiagnosed as depressed. But the average DID patient is in the mental health care system for 6 to 7 years before being diagnosed as a person with DID.

-The criteria, according to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, require that an adult be recurrently controlled by two or more discrete personalities, accompanied my memory lapses for important information that is not caused by alcohol, drugs, or medications.

Prevention

• There is no way you can really prevent DID from occurring. The only way possible to prevent DID from occurring requires interventions in abusive families and treating children with dissociative symptoms as early as possible.

Treatment

• There is no cure for DID. The only thing that doctors prescribe to patients are certain medications, not to stop the personalities from occurring, but to help keep them controlled and to help them to not interrupt their life as often. The only other thing that has been put into effect is therapy, to help understand the personalities better and in some cases to figure out why they started in the first place.

Outlook

• People with DID live healthy lives. With the help of medication and therapy, they are given an opportunity to try and have a "normal life". Though they won't be able to get rid of the "personalities", they will live as others do and live as long as the average person does.