4.28.2010

dissociative identity disorder paper

Dissociative Identity Disorder


Did you know that 98% of the people who have been diagnosed with a Dissociative Identity Disorder have histories of life threatening or overpowering disturbances at a young age when they were children which occurred usually before the age of 9 (WebMD, 2010). Also, in psychiatric hospitals, there are 3% of people who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder and from every nine woman diagnosed with this disorder, there is one male who has it as the disorder (Edward, 1996).

The first man to sometimes be credited with first discovering a Multiple Personality Disorder was Eberhardt, it involved a French woman who was 20 and said she never remembered being French, but that she was always German, even though she spoke French and was a French aristocrat. But Multiple Personality Disorder isn’t something that has only been recognized in the 20th century. It’s said that it has existed since Paleolithic times on the caves where shamans would be morphed into an animal or a different person, a different personality (History of DID, 2010).

What exactly is Dissociative Identity Disorder? Well formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, it’s when a person dissociates severely from their self. This usually goes on when a person tries to forget about a certain abusive memory in their past, and making a new personality helps them forget it. But, the patient usually doesn’t recall their old self or even sometimes their new self. Also, some patients who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder have no past abuse in their life, and most psychologist say that it is genetics (Edward, 1996).

Symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder usually begin in the later teenage years. Some symptoms are lapses in memory in which you can’t remember things in the distant past or memories in your long term memory. When a person frequently lies but doesn’t believe they are lying. Also, they find things in their possession that they don’t remember acquiring. And another symptom is hearing voices in their head, but this is not to be confused with schizophrenia (Edward, 1996).

What usually causes these symptoms is when a child at a young age as sometimes a physical or sexual abuse towards them that is repeated. To go along with abuse, sometimes the child has to learn to dissociate their self due to a lack in a person to comfort them and talk about their problems. And another to go along with genetics, usually a child or a teenager will see someone in their family who has the same problem (Encyclopedia, 2010).

Dissociative Identity Disorder, on the flipside, doesn’t last forever. Though it takes many years of intense therapy to recover the mental state of the patient currently, and from their childhood memories that started the split personality. The therapist tries to uncover all the problems and memories from the patient and tries to alter them into one personality. The therapist acts a list of questions like where it happened, when it happened, what caused it, and how often it dominates. A few other therapies used to treat Dissociative Identity Disorder are Psychotherapy, Hypnosis, and Electroconvulsive therapy. Medication is sometimes used, but should always be monitored and are usually only used with a very sever Dissociative Identity Disorder (Grohol, 2008).

There isn’t a lot of future for the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Most because this disorder isn’t rare, but isn’t common. It’s usually over looked sometimes which isn’t always a positive thing. Dissociative Identity Disorder, if not treated correctly and helped, can literally and mentally tear a person apart (Swartz, 2004).

Bibliography
 
No Author – (2010) Dissociative Identity Disorder

Retrieved April 25, 2010 from Web MD website:
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder

No Author – (2010) A History of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Retrieved April 25, 2010 from History of DID website:
http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/history.htm

Edwards, R. – (1996) Dissociative Identity Disorder
Retrieved April 25, 2010 from Medicine Net website:
http://www.medicinenet.com/dissociative_identity_disorder/article.htm

No Author – (2010) Dissociative identity disorder
Retrieved April 25, 2010 from Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders website:
http://www.minddisorders.com/Del-Fi/Dissociative-identity-disorder.html

Swartz, A – (4/28/2004) Dissociative Identity Disorder
Retrieved April 26, 2010 from All Psych Journal website:
http://allpsych.com/journal/did.html

Grohol, J – (9/7/2008) Dissociative Identity Disorder Treatment
Retrieved April 27, 2010 from Psych Central website:
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx18t.htm

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