How do you deal with multiple personalities?
© Adam Ferrise/cleveland.com Cleveland police are investigating multiple shootings and stabbings over the weekend. Police reported at least nine shootings and two stabbings in the city since Friday afternoon. A third person died Friday after being shot Thursday on the East Side.
How to treat someone with multiple personalities?
- Overview of Treatment. This is an exciting but confusing epoch in the history of the treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).
- Treatment Goals. ...
- Modalities of Treatment. ...
- Useful Principles and Caveats. ...
- A General Outline of Treatment. ...
- The Therapist's Reactions. ...
- Hospital Treatment. ...
- Medications. ...
- Postfusion Therapy. ...
- Postfusion Therapy. ...
What is the best treatment for multiple personality disorder?
- Depersonalization. This is a sense of being detached from one's body and is often referred to as an "out-of-body" experience.
- Derealization. This is the feeling that the world is not real or looking foggy or far away.
- Amnesia. ...
- Identity confusion or identity alteration. ...
How do you cure multiple personality disorder?
The use of multiple personality disorder remains controversial as a criminal defense, as many believe it easily can be faked. The story of “Sybil,” based on a patient named Shirley Mason, was discredited in a 2011 book that revealed Mason admitted to making it up, and her treating physician had capitalized on publicizing the story.
Can multiple personality disorder be treated?
Currently, there is no cure for multiple personality disorder. But with treatment, it is possible to alleviate symptoms and reduce disruptions in the ability to function in daily life. Treatment usually includes a combination of talk therapy and medication.
What treatments exist to treat multiple personality disorder?
Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is the primary treatment for dissociative disorders. This form of therapy, also known as talk therapy, counseling or psychosocial therapy, involves talking about your disorder and related issues with a mental health professional.
How do you solve multiple personality disorder?
Effective treatment includes:Psychotherapy: Also called talk therapy, the therapy is designed to work through whatever triggered and triggers the DID. The goal is to help “fuse” the separate personality traits into one consolidated personality that can control the triggers. ... Hypnotherapy. ... Adjunctive therapy.
What is Multiple Personality Disorder Caused by?
The disorders most often form in children subjected to long-term physical, sexual or emotional abuse or, less often, a home environment that's frightening or highly unpredictable. The stress of war or natural disasters also can bring on dissociative disorders.
What is the best treatment for DID?
Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, is the most effective treatment for dissociative identity disorder. 1 This condition frequently develops from childhood abuse or other traumatic events.
How do you get an alter to come out?
A positive trigger is something non-trauma related and is pleasant enough to cause an alter to come forward and experience happy emotions, such as a special toy, cute puppies, or a favorite ice cream flavor. A positive trigger, in some instances, can be used to bring forth an alter.
How long does dissociative disorder last?
Periods of dissociation can last for a relatively short time (hours or days) or for much longer (weeks or months). It can sometimes last for years, but usually if a person has other dissociative disorders. Many people with a dissociative disorder have had a traumatic event during childhood.
How can you tell if someone has multiple personalities?
Signs and symptomsExperiencing two or more separate personalities, each with their own self-identity and perceptions.A notable change in a person's sense of self.Frequent gaps in memory and personal history, which are not due to normal forgetfulness, including loss of memories, and forgetting everyday events.
How can you tell if someone is faking multiple personality disorder?
Individuals faking or mimicking DID due to factitious disorder will typically exaggerate symptoms (particularly when observed), lie, blame bad behavior on symptoms and often show little distress regarding their apparent diagnosis.
Can DID be cured?
There is no cure for DID. Most people will manage the disorder for the rest of their lives. But a combination of treatments can help reduce symptoms. You can learn to have more control over your behavior.
What triggers switching?
There are a variety of triggers that can cause switching between alters, or identities, in people with dissociative identity disorder. These can include stress, memories, strong emotions, senses, alcohol and substance use, special events, or specific situations. In some cases, the triggers are not known.
What are the 3 types of personality disorders?
Personality disorders are grouped into 3 clusters: A, B and C.Cluster A personality disorders.Cluster B personality disorders.Cluster C personality disorders.
What is MPD in psychology?
According to an empirically-derived model, the patient who develops MPD had (1) the capacity to dissociate, which becomes enlisted as a defense in the face of (2) life experiences (usually of severe abuse) which traumatically overwhelm the nondissociative adaptive capacities of a child's ego.
What is family work with MPD?
Family work with the MPD patient, spouse, and/or children may allow relationships to be saved and strengthened, and protect the children from incorporating or being drawn in to some aspects of the MPD parent's psychopathology.
How long does it take for a patient to relapse from MPD?
Patients who leave treatment after achieving apparent unity usually relapse within two to twenty-four months. Further therapy is indicated to work through issues, prevent repression of traumatic memories, and facilitate the development of non-dissociative coping strategies and defenses. Patients often wish and are encouraged by concerned others to "put it all behind (them)," forgive and forget, and to make up for their time of compromise or incapacitation. In fact, a newly-integrated MPD patient is a vulnerable neophyte who has just achieved the unity with which most patients enter treatment. Moratoria about major life decisions are useful, as is anticipatory socialization in potentially problematic situations. The emergence of realistic goal-setting, accurate perception of others, increased anxiety tolerance, and gratifying sublimations augur well, as does a willingness to work through painful issues in the transference. Avoidance coping styles and defenses require confrontation. Since partial relapse or the discovery of other alters are both possible, the integration per se should not be regarded as sacrosanct. An integration's failure is no more than an indication that it's occurrence was premature, i.e., perhaps it was a flight into health or it was motivated by pressures to avoid further painful work in treatment.
How many MPD patients have declined treatment?
The author has seen over a dozen MPD patients who declined treatment (approximately half of whom know the tentative diagnoses and half who did not) and over two dozen who entered therapies in which their MPD was not addressed. On reassessment, two to eight years later, all continued to have MPD.
Why do MPD patients need hospitalization?
An MPD patient may require hospitalization for self-destructive episodes, severe dysphoria, fugues, or alters' inappropriate behaviors. Sometimes a structured environment is advisable for difficult phases of treatment; an occasional patient must seek treatment far from home. Such patients can be quite challenging, but if the hospital staff accepts the diagnosis and is supportive of the treatment, most can be managed adequately. Failing these conditions, an MPD patient's admission can be traumatizing to the patient and hospital alike. An MPD patient rarely splits a staff splits itself by allowing individual divergent views about this controversial condition to influence professional behavior. Unfortunately, polarization may ensue. MPD patients, experienced as so overwhelming as to threaten the sense of competence of that particular milieu. The staff's sense of helplessness vis-Ã -vis the patient can engender resentment of both the patient and the admitting psychiatrist. It is optimal for the psychiatrist to help the staff in matter-of-fact problem-solving, explain his therapeutic approach, and be available by telephone.
What is the first step in a therapy program?
Step 1 involves the development of trust, and is rarely complete until the end of therapy. Operationally, it means "enough trust to continue the work of a difficult therapy.". Step 2 includes the making of the diagnosis and the sharing of it with the presenting and other personalities.
Can MPD be treated without medication?
Many MPD patients are treated successfully without medication. Kluft noted six patients with MPD and major depression, and found treating either disorder as primary failed to impact on the other. However, Coryell reported a single case in which de conceptualized MPD as an epiphenomenon of a depression.
What is MPD in psychology?
The etiology of MPD is unknown, but a wealth of case reports, shared experience, and data from large series 1-3 suggests that MPD is a dissociative response to the traumatic overwhelming of a child's non-dissociative defenses. 4 The stressor cited most commonly is child abuse. The Four Factor Theory, derived from the retrospective review of 73 cases, and confirmed prospectively in over 100 cases, indicates that MPD develops in an individual who has the capacity to dissociate (Factor 1). 4 This appears to tap the biological substrate of hypnotizability, without implying its compliance dimensions. Such a person's adaptive capacities are overwhelmed by some traumatic events or circumstances (Factor 2), leading to the enlistment of Factor 1 into the mechanisms of defense. Personality formation develops from natural psychological substrates which are available as building blocks (Factor 3). Some of these are imaginary companionships, ego-states, 5 hidden observer structures, 6 state-dependent phenomena, the vicissitudes of libidinal phases, difficulties in the intrapsychic management of introjection/identification/internalization processes, miscarried of introjection/identification/internalization processes, miscarried mechanisms of defense, aspects of the separation-individuation continuum (especially rapprochement issues), and problems in the achievement of cohesive self and object representation. What leads to the fixation of dividedness is (Factor 4) a failure on the part of significant others to protect the child against further overwhelming, and/or to provide positive and nurturing interactions to allow traumata to be "metabolized" and early or incipient dividedness to be abandoned.
What are the most common admissions of MPD patients?
Most admissions of known MPD patients occur in connection with 1) suicidal behaviors or impulses; 2) severe anxiety or depression related to de-repression, emergence of upsetting alters, or failure of a fusion; 3) fugue behaviors; 4) inappropriate behaviors of alters (including involuntary commitments for violence); 5) in connection with procedures or events in therapy during which a structured and protected environment is desirable; and 6) when logistic factors preclude outpatient care.
What are the reactions of a therapist?
Certain therapist reactions are nearly universal. 10 Initial excitement, fascination, overinvestment, and interest in documenting differences among alters yield to feelings of bewilderment, exasperation, and a sense of being drained by the patient. Also normative is concern over colleagues' skepticism and criticism. Some individuals find themselves unable to move beyond these reactions. Most psychiatrists who consulted the author felt overwhelmed by their first MPD cases. 10 They had not appreciated the variety of clinical skills which would be required, and had not anticipated the vicissitudes of the treatment. Most had little prior familiarity with MPD, dissociation, or hypnosis, and had to acquire new knowledge and skills.
What are the inherent vulnerabilities of MPD?
An individual suffering MPD has certain inherent vulnerabilities. The very presence of alters precludes the possibility of an ongoing unified and available observing ego and disrupts autonomous ego activities such as memory and skills. Therapeutic activity with one personality may not impact on others. The patient may be unable to address pressing concerns when some personalities maintain they are not involved, others have knowledge which would be helpful but are inaccessible, and still others regard the misfortunes of the other alters to be to their advantage.
Does Kline and Angst treat MPD?
Kline and Angst tersely state pharmacological treatment of MPD is not indicated. 11 There is general consensus 1) that drugs do not affect the core psychopathology of MPD; and 2) that, nonetheless, it is sometimes necessary to attempt to palliate intense dysphoria and/or to try to relieve target symptoms experienced by one, some, or all personalities. At this point in time treatment is empirical and informed by anecdotal experience rather than controlled studies.
Is multiple personality disorder a demanding condition?
It is generally agreed that the treatment of multiple personality disorder (MPD) can be a demanding and arduous experience for patient and psychiatr ist alike. Difficulties and crisis are intrinsic to the condition, and occur despite therapists' experience and skill. Seasoned clinicians may react with greater composure, and exploit the therapeutic potential of these events more effectively, but are unable to prevent them (C. Wilbur, personal communication, August 1983). In order to appreciate why these patients often prove so difficult, it is helpful to explore certain aspects of the condition's etiology and the patients' was of functioning.
Can anxiety and depression coexist with MPD?
Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, agoraphobia, and hysteroid dysphoria may coexist with MPD and appear medication-responsive. However, response may be so rapid, transient, inconsistent across alters, and/or persist despite withdrawal of drugs, as to cause question. There may be no impact at all. The same holds for the insomnia, headaches, and pain syndromes which can accompany MPD. The author's experience is that, in retrospect, placeboid responses to the actual medications are more common than clear-cut "active drug" interventions.
Why was multiple personality disorder changed?
By 1994, the name multiple personality disorder was changed to dissociative identity disorder in order to better reflect a current understanding of the condition. The new understanding characterized the different personalities as fragmented or splintered from one identity—it no longer considered the personalities to have developed as separate ...
Why is disassociation important in psychotherapy?
The goal of psychotherapy is to deconstruct each split personality and reintegrate it with the core identity.
What is a dissociative identity disorder?
What Is Multiple Personality Disorder? Multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder (DID), is a rare and controversial mental health condition. It is characterized by disassociation, or a disruption in the integrated consciousness of self, identity, memory, and perception. Occurrences of multiple personality disorder ...
What is disassociation in psychology?
Disassociation is caused by a lack of connection between a person’s memory, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and individual sense of self. Many people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder have described the sensation that their bodies “feel different,” or as if their bodies are not under their own control.
What is the purpose of anti-anxiety medication?
Usually, anti-anxiety medications are used to treat anxiety , antidepressants to treat depression, and antipsychotics to treat auditory or visual hallucinations.
How to treat a fractured identity?
Treatment usually includes a combination of talk therapy and medication. Talk therapy is generally aimed at trying to unify, or re-unify, a fractured identity.
Is multiple personality disorder the same as dissociative identity disorder?
When the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health 4th Edition (DSM-IV) was published, multiple personality disorder was renamed as dissociative identity disorder. The two disorders are essentially the same, meaning they refer to the same condition. However, the re-characterization of the disorder left some scientists ...
What is the best treatment for personality disorder?
If possible, find a mental health professional with experience in treating personality disorders. Psychotherapy, also called talk therapy, is the main way to treat personality disorders.
What kind of doctor can help with personality disorders?
Because personality disorders often require specialized care, your primary doctor may refer you to a mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist, for evaluation and treatment. Taking a family member or friend along can help you remember something that you missed or forgot.
How to help a psychiatric patient with weight gain?
Education about your condition can empower you and motivate you to stick to your treatment plan. Get active. Physical activity can help manage many symptoms, such as depression, stress and anxiety. Activity can also counteract the effects of some psychiatric medications that may cause weight gain.
What is the diagnostic criteria for personality disorder?
However, according to the DSM-5, generally the diagnosis of a personality disorder includes long-term marked deviation from cultural expectations that leads to significant distress or impairment in at least two of these areas:
How to diagnose personality disorder?
Diagnosis. If your doctor suspects you have a personality disorder, a diagnosis may be determined by: Physical exam. The doctor may do a physical exam and ask in-depth questions about your health. In some cases, your symptoms may be linked to an underlying physical health problem. Your evaluation may include lab tests and a screening test ...
What is the best medication for mood disorders?
Antidepressants. Antidepressants may be useful if you have a depressed mood, anger, impulsivity, irritability or hopelessness, which may be associated with personality disorders. Mood stabilizers. As their name suggests, mood stabilizers can help even out mood swings or reduce irritability, impulsivity and aggression. Antipsychotic medications.
What is included in a psychiatric evaluation?
Your evaluation may include lab tests and a screening test for alcohol and drugs. Psychiatric evaluation. This includes a discussion about your thoughts, feelings and behavior and may include a questionnaire to help pinpoint a diagnosis. With your permission, information from family members or others may be helpful.
How long does it take to switch personality?
As each personality reveals itself and controls the individuals' behavior and thoughts, it's called "switching.". Switching can take seconds to minutes to days. Some seek treatment with hypnosis where the person's different "alters" or identities may be very responsive to the therapist's requests. Other symptoms of dissociative identity disorder ...
How does dissociative identity disorder affect the way people live?
There are several main ways in which the psychological processes of dissociative identity disorder change the way a person experiences living, including the following: Depersonalization . This is a sense of being detached from one's body and is often referred to as an "out-of-body" experience. Derealization.
Why is dissociative disorder common?
This is common, because the list of symptoms that cause a person with a dissociative disorder to seek treatment is very similar to those of many other psychiatric diagnoses. In fact, many people who have dissociative disorders also have coexisting diagnoses of borderline or other personality disorders, depression, and anxiety.
How long does it take to diagnose dissociative identity disorder?
Making the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder takes time. It's estimated that individuals with dissociative disorders have spent seven years in the mental health system prior to accurate diagnosis. This is common, because the list of symptoms that cause a person with a dissociative disorder to seek treatment is very similar to those ...
What are the symptoms of dissociative identity disorder?
Other symptoms of dissociative identity disorder may include headache, amnesia, time loss, trances, and "out of body experiences .". Some people with dissociative disorders have a tendency toward self-persecution, self-sabotage, and even violence (both self-inflicted and outwardly directed).
What is the DSM-5?
The DSM-5 provides the following criteria to diagnose dissociative identity disorder: Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self.
What is the term for a sense of confusion about who a person is?
There can also be micro-amnesias where the discussion engaged in is not remembered, or the content of a meaningful conversation is forgotten from one second to the next. Identity confusion or identity alteration. Both of these involve a sense of confusion about who a person is.
Overview of Treatment
Treatment Goals
Modalities of Treatment
Useful Principles and Caveats
A General Outline of Treatment
The Therapist's Reactions
Hospital Treatment
- An MPD patient may require hospitalization for self-destructive episodes, severe dysphoria, fugues, or alters' inappropriate behaviors. Sometimes a structured environment is advisable for difficult phases of treatment; an occasional patient must seek treatment far from home. Such patients can be quite challenging, but if the hospital staff accepts ...
Medications
Postfusion Therapy
Follow-Up Studies
Etiology
The Instability of The MPD Patient
The Therapist's Reactions
The Practical Psychopharmcology of MPD
A Psychiatrist's Empathic Capacities May Be Sorely Tested
Alters May Emerge Who Are Afraid, Angry, Or Perplexed at Being in The Hospital.
The Hospital Treatment of Multiple Personality
- Most admissions of known MPD patients occur in connection with 1) suicidal behaviors or impulses; 2) severe anxiety or depression related to de-repression, emergence of upsetting alters, or failure of a fusion; 3) fugue behaviors; 4) inappropriate behaviors of alters (including involuntary commitments for violence); 5) in connection with procedures...