What is multiple personality disorder

Multiple Personality Disorder (properly known as Dissociative Personality Disorder) is a condition where a person ‘dissasociates’ – that is, he startes to lose his sense of self- and two or more separate personalities exist within the same …

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_multiple_personality_disorder

Multiple Personality Disorder (also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder) is a severe mental illness characterized by the presence of two or more separate identities that control the individual’s actions and behavior.

http://www.wsdstaff.net/%7Ebjones/school/current/mpd/mpd.htm

First of all, it is now called dissociative identity disorder. It was changed because it does not fall into the category of a personality disorder, but a dissociative disorder–dissociative fugue, dissociative amnesia, DD-NOS… Most people…

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080907192236AA4EgJ4

Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers

Multiple Personality Disorder:1 of them kills, are all the others punished too or just the one?

Q: Multiple Personality Disorder, aka Dissociative Identity Disorder. Lets say a guy has a MPD. He has 3 or 4 other personalities besides his own. One of his personalities kills someone or robs a bank. The law can’t figure out which personality committed the crime. So, the law arrests the man who has all those personalities. Can he legally be charged with the crime if one of his other personalities committed it?

A: if the psychiatrist can accurately define and describe each of the personalities, then the person might be able to plead insanity. 3 or 4 personalities seems too few, the average is somewhere around 8. clinical hypnosis have been helpful when therapists try to integrate these different identities

Can someone with Multiple Personality Disorder lose a phobia when switching personalities?

Q: I’m writing a book which involves one of the characters having multiple personality disorder. In the book, the character has a phobia of blood. I need to know whether or not they can lose this phobia when they change personalities, being that they pretty much become a different person when changing personalities. I can’t find the answer to my question anywhere and no one I talk to knows. Help?

A: good question. It depends, since the multiple personality is basically different psychological function/mechanism exsisting in the same psyche which could either be genetic or occur after traumatic experience. while a phobia is based on a traumatic experience that amplify the psychologic protective mechanism against whatever it is that traumatized them. Ask yourself some questions like: how close is the bond between the causes of either disorders. Is the multiple personality disorder genetic? what caused the phobia ? which personality did the trauma (which caused the phobia) happen to. Thats if you want to get technical. Its all based on psychological triggers. my guessI think its up to you to decide whether all of the personalities have the same phobia or just one. if the brain is intricate enough to create completely differnt people within one psyche then its definetly possible for one of them to have the phobia.

What’s the difference between schitzophrenia and multiple personality disorder?

Q: My understanding of schitzophrenia is that a person suffering from it might hallucinate sights, sounds, and even smells, etc., but the way it’s always portrayed in movies and on TV is that schitzophrenics “hear voices” in their head and have split personalities. What are the true definitions of these conditions, and how are they different? Are they different names for the same thing, or is multiple personality disorder caused by schizophrenia?

A: Schizophrenia is actually not at all the same thing as dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. actually, DID is so rare that its validity as a disorder is questioned by some psychologists, and very little is known about it. what is known is that it is more common in women, and more common still in women who have experienced sexual abuse. the separate personality or personalities which split from the original are often opposite the person’s original personality, and often unknown, at least at first, to the original personality. also, the first split personality generally knows about the others, and often establishes itself as the “controller” of the others. schizophrenia means “split mind,” but in the sense of being split from reality, not split into parts. it is extremely debilitative and people suffering from it often experience hallucinations (usually in the form of voices), paranoia, catatonia, and illogical thought, among other things.ok, the above was all information learned in psych class, and below is a link on each:http://www.sidran.org/didbr.htmlhttp://www.psychologynet.org/schiz.html