• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Dissociative Identity Disorder in popular media

aggle-rithm

Ardent Formulist
aggle-rithm
Joined
Jun 9, 2005
Messages
15,334
Location
Austin, TX
This week's episode of 'House' promised an unbelievable twist, with previews saying "We can't show you too much of this episode, it will give it away!"

So what was the twist?

The patient had Dissociative Personality Disorder.

That's right: The first case EVER of DPD arising spontaneously, without being coaxed out by therapy! Too bad it was fiction.

I'm not saying the Multiple Personality Disorder* is CAUSED by therapy, but if those same symptoms COULD be planted into a patient by therapy, it would be impossible to distinguish the two.

In spite of this, popular culture persists in presenting this as a real disease that can be investigated by putting the patient in an extremely suggestible state (hypnosis), creating a scenario indistinguishable from mind control.

I thought 'House' was above this sort of nonsense, but I guess I was wrong. Oh, well.

*What they used to call it before people started getting skeptical of someone having 15 personalities.
 
Ah, yes. I remember that the novel and later the movie Anatomy of a Murder (1959) based its protagonist's defense of a murderer on dissociative disorder, though the book, more than the film, made it clear that the attorney, Paul Biegler, was essentially using the notion as a fig leaf to cover an "unwritten law" case. Probably it all springs from Thigpen and Cleckley's 1954 case study, The Three Faces of Eve, and there has been some controversy about that, too.
 
Read "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan to know more about this. This book just came out recently and delves deep into the most popular book/movie about DID (or Multiple Personality Disorder as it used to be called).

Basically, this pt. most likely had pernicious anemia, which can and probably did cause psychiatric symptoms for her. Couple that with an overzealous therapist who wanted to be "known for something", who got her pt. addicted to Pentathol, an addictice barbituate, and who actually ended up living with this celebrity pt. and you have the perfect storm for a nationwide panic about a disorder that very few people actually have. Before "Sybil", there were around 200 cases of what could have been known as MPD. After the popularity of Sybil, there were around 40000 cases, mostly women with dependent personalities.

It's a fascinating book and a sad story.
 
In Northern California back in the 1970s there was a serial killer called the Hillside Strangler. It actually turned out to be two guys, a pair of cousins named Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi. Buono was arrested first, but Bianchi managed to escape to Washington state, where he assumed a new name and committed two more murders before getting caught.

Bianchi, a career con artist, successfully fooled a number of forensic psychologists into believing he had MPD as a ploy for an insanity defense. Of particular interest is how his ruse was discovered: one of the psychologists confided to Bianchi in session that he felt it odd that Bianchi only exhibited dual personalities, whereas the standard pattern for MPD was for at least three personalities to be present. He said that in almost all cases a third, repressed personality would emerge under hypnosis and this was the only factor that prevented a conclusive diagnosis of MPD. Of course, in the very next hypnosis session Bianchi began malingering a third personality, that of a weak, emotionally vulnerable little child. When the videotapes of his sessions were shown to psychologists, it was decided that he'd been 'faking it' all along, and his insanity defense fell apart.

Bianchi ended up turning state's against his cousin in exchange for a life sentence instead of death.
 
Last edited:
John Albert said:
...Bianchi, a career con artist, successfully fooled a number of forensic psychologists into believing he had MPD as a ploy for an insanity defense. Of particular interest is how his ruse was discovered: one of the psychologists confided to Bianchi in session that he felt it odd that Bianchi only exhibited dual personalities, whereas the standard pattern for MPD was for at least three personalities to be present. He said that in almost all cases a third, repressed personality would emerge under hypnosis and this was the only factor that prevented a conclusive diagnosis of MPD. Of course, in the very next hypnosis session Bianchi began malingering a third personality, that of a weak, emotionally vulnerable little child. When the videotapes of his sessions were shown to psychologists, it was decided that he'd been 'faking it' all along, and his insanity defense fell apart...QUOTE]
Actually, the team consisted of psychiatrists, not psychologists. The one that tricked him was Martin Ornas, M.D.,Ph.D. Who was both a psychiatrist and a psychologist.
Click to expand...
 
John Albert said:
Of particular interest is how his ruse was discovered: one of the psychologists confided to Bianchi in session that he felt it odd that Bianchi only exhibited dual personalities, whereas the standard pattern for MPD was for at least three personalities to be present. He said that in almost all cases a third, repressed personality would emerge under hypnosis and this was the only factor that prevented a conclusive diagnosis of MPD. Of course, in the very next hypnosis session Bianchi began malingering a third personality, that of a weak, emotionally vulnerable little child. When the videotapes of his sessions were shown to psychologists, it was decided that he'd been 'faking it' all along, and his insanity defense fell apart.

.
Click to expand...

Interesting...in Ramachandran's "Phantoms of the Brain", he mentions being intrigued by the idea of a dual personality and found it plausible. Unfortunately, when he tried to look at individual cases he only found claims of 15 or 20 personalities, which he dismissed because there really is no neurological mechanism for it.
 
Nursedan said:
Read "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan to know more about this. This book just came out recently and delves deep into the most popular book/movie about DID (or Multiple Personality Disorder as it used to be called).

Basically, this pt. most likely had pernicious anemia, which can and probably did cause psychiatric symptoms for her. Couple that with an overzealous therapist who wanted to be "known for something", who got her pt. addicted to Pentathol, an addictice barbituate, and who actually ended up living with this celebrity pt. and you have the perfect storm for a nationwide panic about a disorder that very few people actually have. Before "Sybil", there were around 200 cases of what could have been known as MPD. After the popularity of Sybil, there were around 40000 cases, mostly women with dependent personalities.

It's a fascinating book and a sad story.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live sketch where a psychiatrist was helping a group of like six people with their "delusion" that they had more than one personality. He talked about how well they were doing, because when they started they had 15 personalities. "The others got fed up and quit coming!" he was told.
 
When I was in college I worked an APA seminar for the study and treatment of MPD. The running gag among the attendants was that they should all be wearing those "Hello! My Name Is" stickers with a list of names written in.

I got the impression that a lot of them didn't take it all that seriously.
 
i was disappointed to see Disassociative Personality Disorder in my Psychology text book with no mention of it being at least, a controversial and problematic diagnosis.
 
I noticed this on House too and had thought it was a conclusion that it's not a real disorder; however, on another site I frequent, apparently it still is considered real, just not as rampant (or with as many personalities in one body) as first thought. Someone claimed they knew somebody with it.

Still, boo House.
 
Just my non-professional opinion but I suspect the myth may have arose at least partly from peoples' misinterpretation of the dramatic changes between "normal" baseline and "not-normal" mood swings in bi-polar disorder. To the untrained that could easily seem to be three separate personalites (obviously without the elaborate back stories).
 
Robrob said:
Just my non-professional opinion but I suspect the myth may have arose at least partly from peoples' misinterpretation of the dramatic changes between "normal" baseline and "not-normal" mood swings in bi-polar disorder. To the untrained that could easily seem to be three separate personalites (obviously without the elaborate back stories).
Click to expand...


Similar effects might also be attributable to borderline personality disorder, where the subject tends to act very differently in the presence of different individuals.
 
John Albert said:
In Northern California back in the 1970s there was a serial killer called the Hillside Strangler.
Click to expand...

Southern California, not Northern.

I saw an older episode of Law & Order the other day, involving Dissociative Identity Disorder. At first they think one of the personalities committed the murder as protection, but then they figured out a different personality killed the psychiatrist because she lied. The only reason this episode stands out for me is the actress who played the character with DID also shills a migraine medicine, so every time I see the advert, I think it's her multiple personalities that are causing the migraine.
 
If you want to see an extreme personality change check out someone with Social Anxiety Disorder.
It's an amazing transformation between the subject talking to one person vs. being in a group.
 
I treated DID patients years ago and never believed in it. There were always significant inconsistencies in their stories, and none ever exhibited any symptom that couldn't be easily and simply explained with other existing diagnoses. They typically got a lot less symptomatic when it was time for smoking, eating, or visitation.

All of these patients (several dozen) had severe Borderline Personality Disorder and/or PTSD and a history of (or claims of) sexual abuse.

A few resisted or did not seek peer attention from the diagnosis. Those I believe had been terribly abused. (I did a family session with one abuser, yuck, so I know the abuse really happened.) I believe they had dissociation related to their PTSD and had the misfortune of encountering therapists who liked to diagnose DID.

The rest really got a LOT of secondary gain (attention, not having normal life responsibilities) from their diagnosis and whenever they were told they were making progress and the attention diminished, they came up with new abuse stories and new personalities emerged. This was cool for the therapists who had permanent patients and it was cool for the patients who wanted permanent therapy.
 
Last edited:
aggle-rithm said:
That's right: The first case EVER of DPD arising spontaneously, without being coaxed out by therapy! Too bad it was fiction.
.
Click to expand...

wiki said:
This disorder is theoretically linked with the interaction of overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents, insufficient childhood nurturing, and an innate ability to dissociate memories or experiences from consciousness. A high percentage of patients report child abuse. People diagnosed with DID often report that they have experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during early to mid childhood. Several psychiatric rating scales of DID sufferers suggested that DID is strongly related to childhood trauma rather than to an underlying electrophysiological dysfunction.
Click to expand...

Others believe that the symptoms of DID are created iatrogenically by therapists using certain treatment techniques with suggestible patients, but this idea is not universally accepted
Click to expand...
;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom