Dissociative Identity Disorder

John, Jay, Decca, Mac and Sanji are living as a happy family. They get

along well with each other, support and help each other, doing everything what needs

to be done for an everyday living. However, the house is not the only thing they share.

They share a body. John was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, or

dissociative identity disorder (DID), how it is called nowadays. All the other

personalities are John’s alters. People who suffer from DID have a main personality

called “host” and all the other personalities are the “alters”. All these personalities

are distinct from each other. Tone, voice, vocabulary, behavior, posture, manners and

everything that contributes to a personality is different.

There is a lot of debate and disagreement about the causes of dissociative identity

disorder among scientists. The causes of the disease are still unknown for sure, but the

most likely cause seems to be severe childhood sexual abuse. It is believed that children,

create a fantasy world in order to escape from the abusive memories. In this way, the

human mind begins to dissociate, imagining that the horrific abuse happened to

somebody else.

Dissociative identity disorder didn’t receive as much attention in the past as it

does today. It was first mentioned in the 19th century and in 1980 it was officially

approved to be a real psychiatric disorder. In the past only few cases were mentioned,

because it was considered to be a very rare disease. Nowadays the number of people

with DID has significantly increased to thousands of cases. That’s why some scientists

doubt about its existence, considering that many people feign the disease as an excuse

for criminal or illegal acts. Its name was changed from multiple personality disorder to

dissociative identity disorder, because in fact, the personality doesn’t multiply, but it

splits or dissociates.

According to Van der Hart and Nijenhuis (1999) , diagnosis of DID is based

on certain guidelines, namely on four criteria.

First, two or more distinct identities that co-exist must be reported. Second, at least two

personalities must take control regularly of the person’s identity. Third, the person

must experience amnesia or loss of memory and fourth, it should not be caused by

direct physiological effect of substance abuse. An important research conducted by a

neurobiologist showed that changes in brain wave activities occurred as the different

personalities took control over persons suffering from DID. Namely, the hippocampus,

that is involved in memories, changed its pattern of activity with the appearance of a new

alter. This may demonstrate that people with DID have split cognitive faculties and their

identities are experienced disjointedly. (Fractured minds, 2003).

Van der Hart and Nijenhuis (1999) contend that the treatment of DID

involves three procedures. First, stabilization and reduction of the

symptoms is needed. Next, it is required to treat the traumatic memories

and then, integration of the personalities is conducted. Initially, the therapist tries to

stabilize the person, namely to prevent any behavior that could harm him/her and to

achieve cooperation among the alters. After that, the therapist tries to recall

the memories of abuse through hypnosis. However, these memories are often very

painful and can cause even more harm. The goal of the treatment is the integration

of the alternate personalities to a single unit. This has to be done slowly and carefully,

considering each distinct identity. Usually, the process is long lasting, namely up to

seven years and full recovery is not always achieved.