Studying psychology over the years, I do not believe that MPD actually exists. I have never met someone that has appeared to have this type of disorder and no one I know that has degrees in psychology and works with mentally ill patients has ever encountered it.
Now there is DID which is a new name for MPD which is a bit different. But how MPD is potrayed in television, film, and pop-culture etc. I do not believe that it exists.
[deleted]
It affects .8% of the population i think.
This answers no questions (it's really just a Newsweek article, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the validity of MPD or DID), but if anyone wants to learn at least a little bit more about MPD here you go (this movie was mentioned, too): http://www.newsweek.com/id/57343/page/1
Apparently all Angela needed to hear was her job description in a deep, African-American tone.
I heard years ago that studies were conducted with dogs. A DID patient would be observed interacting with his or her dog. When the patient changed personalities, the dog was shown to react as if its owner was an unrecognizable stranger. The moment the owner turned back, the dog would be seen getting excited as if the owner had been gone and returned.
shareHmmmm, that's still not very strong in my opinion. But it is interesting.
There was another study done in which a supposed MPD patient was asked to remember something simple and then later when he was in his other personality to repeat what he memorised earlier. He paused first and then said he didn't know.
This study has been done a number of times I believe and always gets a similar result. It shows that these people didn't actually go into another personality because they pause first knowing that it is something they aren't supposed to remember and have to think about it first. If they were in another personality, they should respond right away and have a much different reaction.
Again, this disorder has been shown to be actually different factors. Some just want attention. Plus it is kind of "neat" to think you could be more than one person I suppose.
It makes for good horror and drama in film and literature I will admit.
At the time Sybil was diagnosed with MPD there were only four other known diagnoses in the century, the only living MPD being Eve White (Three Faces of Eve.) Following the publication of the book and broadcast of the movie their was a sudden "epidemic of MPD" with something like 100,000 diagnoses in 10 years.
Obviously many if not most of these diagnoses were incorrect or fraudulent, and it became a major issue in both the psychiatric/psychologic and legal world. Many of these "diagnoses" were being used to escape responsibility for crimes committed. Also the insurance industry was up in arms because they were being forced to pay out for treatments lasting several years.
MPD/DID also became associated and in some cases synonymous for "Repressed Memory Syndrome." As people became more educated about child abuse (one of the good affects of the Sybil story) some people were being falsely accused of child abuse, mostly sexual abuse and in some cases supposedly victims being assaulted repeatedly by devil worshipping cults. There was a major case in Minnesota involving around 40 people being accused, IIRC. Anyway, it was a witch hunt, IMO, as all of the people were eventually cleared (at great emotional and monetary expense) and in almost all cases of RDS the "victims" later recanted.
All of this gave MPD a very black eye. Another poster stated that MPD affects 0.8% of the population (in America alone that would amount to 2.4 million, which seems like an awfully high number to me.)
I'm not a psych nor trained in psychology, although I worked as an RN and took a couple of psych courses. It's just opinion, but I've always believed that MPD/DID does exist but is extremely rare.
Exactly. MPD was also heavily associated with Satanic ritual abuse. A book called "Michelle Remembers" gave a strong lift towards SRA and there was a HUGE scare back in the '80s in North America. SRA has been shown to not exist (there has NEVER been any credible evidence found or a documented case) and the book has been accused now as being a hoax. It has been found that hypnosis can also implant false memories, but there're some factors that make it evident that it was a purposely done hoax. Michelle and her therapist later getting married is strange and many argue that a lot of the details into the abuse is very similar to her therapist's stories about the myths he encountered during his travels back in the 1960's I believe. I'll have to research it again.
Myself personally, I do not believe the disorder exists. Doesn't mean it doesn't, but that is just my opinion. I'll have to research it more. It is an "eerie" disorder I do admit and makes for good storytelling.
I'm also sceptical about the whole ADD/ADHD epidemic that's become so popular post 1990. There are people that don't believe these disorders actually exist as well. Personally if ADD/ADHD do, I think they are MUCH more rare than what people claim.
Is SRA and RMS synonymous? I'm not familiar with the acronym.
It's been debated several times whether or not Sybil had MPD. I believe she did and I've debated it elsewhere but other than opinion I'm not qualified to say yea or nay about it. I would agree that it is extremely rare and the diagnosis was badly abused post-Sybil and the response has gone from "everyone has it" to "no one has it."
SRA is Satanic Ritual Abuse which is child abuse involving Satanic things.
There is a woman who was featured on TLC who has 15 personalities and she lives two buildings down from where I currently live. My friend's ex wife has a couple of Multiply personilities herself, because when she was a kid her father sexually abused her until she was 13. It is a real thing. Only people who want to get out of trouble use that as a defense. It's an actual disorder.
"You're a goddamn *hit sucking vampire, oh you wait til mom comes home!"
"Myself personally, I do not believe the disorder exists. Doesn't mean it doesn't, but that is just my opinion." Makes no serious dent in your opinion, but there were people on these boards who talked about their own MPD/DID. In my opinion, you lean over too far backwards on the matter (your right, of course!). From what I've learned, it probably does exist (in a few cases) and a clinician who won't listen to his patient because he preclusively disbelieves the existence of a disorder they may have does them no good. I've been on both sides of psychology at various times, most of my life (62): one thing I know is that you always have to treat the patient, not the disease/disorder. The same with ADHD/ADD. It is the fad of the decade, anyway, and in some ways, so are both Asperger's Syndrome and Autism...but that doesn't mean they do not exist.
"Vademecum..."
Jet, isn't autism fairly easy to diagnose? I know ADD is fairly notorious as a catch-all for behavior disorders and an easy treat-all for negligent parents (give 'em ritalin and forget 'em.) I'm not familiar with Asperger's Syndrome.
share"I'm not familiar with Asperger's Syndrome." Sometimes referred to as "High-Function Autism". Try books by Tony Attwood for more details. One case I do recall was a writer riding on an British train (not the "Hogwart's Special...") who was joined in his "cabin" by another rider and great train enthusiast. The intended thinking time was given over to a lesson in the specific train that they were riding in, in more detail than most "normal" people would really care to know, including the engine, tender, caboose and passenger cars...down to where "these rivets" in their cabin were made and when and what rail yard did the final assembly. Or the lady who grew up around farm animals (Temple Grandin?") and didn't, even as a child, like the ways cattle and other livestock were "treated" by their passage through the feed lot equipment. She began designing newer, more humane and more efficient ways to move the livestock. They fixate on an idea and get down into the tiniest details of whatever they are into, but they can teach, engineer aat and explore their area of interest with others. It includes some not exactly appropriate behavior or verbalization: A social Worker called at one home, and the child who greeted her announceed their intent to "undress" her. After taking the very nervous lady's outer jacket and hanging it up, the child wandered intently away on another mission, the "undressing" being completed...
Autistic Spectrum Disorders cover a wide variety of conditions, from sitting quietly rocking perpetually to some rythm no one else can hear but otherwise oblivious (once called "Childhood Schizophrenia) but no longer used), to so-called "Idiot-Savant" (also obsolete) - talents (like the kid who was handed a telephone book open to a page and before they were been told what they were to do ("find the 15th name in column 2 on this page and read it to me" they said an enormous number. When asked what that is, the kid responds "The total, I added it up." - they'd added ALL the numbers on the entire page (or BOTH pages) they saw... Or the kid who can pick anything up, broken or not, open it to see how it works and often fixes things that haven't worked for years, but no one's ever been able to tell why and puts it back together out of hand. Or the kid who can pick up ANY musical instrument, examine it and begin to play like a concert virtuoso.
Asperger's is at the higher end and has been traced backwards through families. The child is clinically diagnosed, but the child's father or mother has the same level of function and idiosyncracies; tracking back, so does/did grandpa or grandma. It was discovered and described in the 40s; now it's the new thing.
It's like the questions about when which of Sybil's "selves" were "born" and how they aged - or failed to - including Vicki stopping just at adolescence and and the unexpected emergence of the new, unknown and un-named teen "self" who held Sybil's adolesence and slow maturing until the final merging... and how well each copes with "their world" - and who worked in which art medium - as they knew it with one major difference: Autism/Asperger's Spectrum is more likely a purely neurologic than behavioral response.
"Vademecum..."
ARTICLE ABRIDGED, BUT SECTIONS QUOTED ARE VERBATIM (COPY AND PASTE): LAST LINE HIGHLIGHT IS MINE. Jet
http://www.newsweek.com/id/57343
By Anne Underwood | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 29, 2007
Even for a psychiatric patient, Karen Overhill seemed unusually devoid of hope on the day in 1989 she walked into the Chicago office of Dr. Richard Baer. As weeks of therapy grew into months, antidepressants didn't help her, at least not consistently. She was suicidal—and the flat, emotionless way she stated her wish to die made Baer fear that she might actually follow through. Eventually, Karen began to volunteer stories of childhood abuse. And she mentioned odd memory lapses. She would find herself in strange places with no awareness of how she'd gotten there. She couldn't even remember having had sex with her husband, although she must have, since they had two children.
The remarkable medical journey that ensued is the subject of Baer's new book, "Switching Time." It recounts the 17-year course of Karen's therapy in all its painful detail and sheds new light on multiple personality disorder (MPD), the controversial illness that afflicted her. (Karen Overhill is a pseudonym Baer created to protect his patient and her family.) The book describes the challenges Baer faced as more and more of Karen's alter egos emerged—men, women and children—a total of 17, each with his or her own character traits, mental problems and agenda. Baer had to get to know them all, then persuade them to wipe out their individual identities by merging into one. It was the defining case of his career—and one that may have saved Karen's life.
==========================================================================
Still, it's easy to see why MPD remains controversial. Although the condition has been observed for 200 years—and is officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association under the formal name "dissociative identity disorder"—it is rare enough that most therapists never treat a case. Some psychiatrists doubt that it exists at all, claiming it is the product of suggestion. In some cases, they're probably right. The 1973 best seller "Sybil" led to a wave of diagnoses by therapists who didn't really understand the condition. One psychiatric hospital in Maryland "had a whole ward with patients—some male, some female, some mooing like cows or barking like dogs," says Dr. Paul McHugh, former chair of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and a leading skeptic. It didn't help that both the made-for-TV movie version of "Sybil," which starred Sally Field, and the 1957 film "The Three Faces of Eve" gave exaggerated portrayals of radical personality shifts, which made MPD seem more bizarre than believable—or that the disorder was later enmeshed in the controversy over false "recovered memories" of childhood abuse. MPD became an embarrassing diagnosis in the psychiatric community.
But it didn't go away. Dr. Frank Putnam—who has studied the condition extensively, first at the National Institute of Mental Health and now at Cincinnati Children's Hospital—continues to receive calls from psychiatrists around the country who are stunned when a patient of theirs turns out to have the disorder. "There's nothing like seeing a patient who has it to make you believe," he says. Today there are clearer diagnostic criteria and a better understanding of the causes. The condition, says Dr. Herbert Speigel, who occasionally treated Sybil during her therapist's absence, is "real, but rare."
"Vademecum..."
Scimetar Northerner I hope you will never be a psychologist or psychiatrist. You have closed your mind. This is why Dr. Wilbur was able to open a door into Sybil's world. She had not closed any doors. She followed the evidence. Other doctors failed to notice what was happening in the patient even though they had clues.
Your friends or yourself, would probably not recognize this if you did see it. When the people who treat mental illness only look for a way to control the person and keep them in check, they are not looking for the cause of the illness. Such is the case of most patients today unless they are able to enroll in a really good program for drug or alcohol intervention. Outside of that, there are very few affordable programs that would look in depth into anyone's mental state.
Thank you. It seems as if Scimetar Northerner is hell bent on spewing his/her ignorance in each and every thread dealing with the subject of MPD/DID. Never mind that the DSM-10 lists DID as a legitimate psychiatric disorder; Scimetar Northerner knows better.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
It exists, and is more common than people think, but MPD/DID is nothing like know-it-all Psychiatrists believe it to be.
Just..... trust my opinion on the subject. I've neither any need nor desire to explain my expertise, just to state I've more than enough of it to know it is a very real state of existance for multiple minds to share one body.
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do." - Benjamin Franklin.
I know you left this comment many years ago, but it's too laughable not to respond to. Everyone should accept your anonymous internet comment as fact on blind faith? Really, you REALLY think that's the way intelligent adults should engage with the world? Unbelievable.
share"know-it-all Psychiatrists" LMFAO, oh brother.
shareThere are cynics for everything in the world. Your not believing the disorder exists doesn't make it any less real to to those who are diagnosed with it each day.It DOES exist. My heart goes out to those who have been tortured in the ways Shirley and others were. It is so difficult listening to that.
Raven
Does Not Suffer From MPD
Over the summer I've befriended my back yard neighbor who is bipolar. He's pretty well controlled with medication, but it's interesting (and sad) to note his occasional extremes.
I'll admit I didn't "see" his condition until after he had told me his father was near death after a heart attack. After not seeing him for several days and assuming he was spending time with his dad, I saw his wife hanging laundry in the back yard and asked how ****'s dad was doing? She said, "he's fine. Why?" I explained and she told me about his condition and that when he's manic he's a world class liar.
I never worked as a psych nurse but I did work with patients with both medical and psychological problems. All I saw with **** were what appeared to be normal periods of happiness and sadness... the same thing I see in people around me everyday, myself included.
My point in this ramble is that in a lifetime it's possible that we've known someone with DID, but because we saw only a certain personality or accepted their behavior as idiosyncracies, we never thought about them being "someone" else.
He always follows the creek.
I totally agree with you. You never truly know who you might be talking to in any situation. As far as I'm concerned such disorders do exist.Quite sad really.
Raven
Unbowed
My stepmother has a Ph.D. in psychology and one of her specialties is MPD, so yes, it is real. For some weird reason, there seems to be a small group of (AFAICT) mostly men who seem determined to disprove it.
edited for spelling
Well...then by all means...since YOU don't believe it exists, then it surely must not exist.
(Face palm)
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)