Research into Dissociative Identity Disorder Essay

Submitted By LornaNeeson
Words: 352
Pages: 2

Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder)

 Dissociative identity disorder is thought to be caused by trauma. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism; the person literally dissociates himself from a situation or experience that's too violent, traumatic, or painful to think about with his conscious self.

 The disorder is described as someone having two or more distinct personalities that have power over the person's behaviour.

 With this disorder the person also has trouble with recalling personal information there is also highly distinct memory variations which change with the persons split personality

 The different personalities have their own; age, sex and race. They each have their own postures, gestures, and way of talking.

 Sometimes the different personalities are imaginary people, they also can be animals.

 The word for when the personalities change and reveal themselves is called ‘switching’. Switching can take seconds to minutes to days.

 When under hypnosis the different personalities can come through and be very responsive to the hypnotist’s requests

 Some of the symptoms can be things like; Mood swings, suicidal thoughts, sleep Disorders, anxiety and panic attacks, Alcohol and drug abuse, Compulsions or rituals, Psychotic-like symptoms, Eating disorders.

 When the disorder is first diagnosed there is an average of 2 to 4 personalities present but by the end of the treatment there are