Imaginary personalities. How to create your own doubles for good

There are many mental disorders that we know more about not from real life, but from films, books and anything else that requires a gripping plot and intrigue. Schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, psychosis - these are all things that we know very well about, but all our knowledge in this area is very, very fragmented. There are just a lot of sources, and it’s not clear who to believe. Can anyone really just go ahead and say what the symptoms of split personality are? Of course not. But this is a real, not a fictitious disease, from which no one is immune.

What is this disease?

Let's look at the very foundations of psychology: a person is a being that is both biological and social at the same time. From a biological point of view, he is an individual, and from a social point of view, he is a person. A person's personality is formed over the years. It is influenced by the knowledge acquired, stress experienced, social circle and much more. Personality is understood as something stable that can change only after a sufficient amount of time or under the influence of some strong external factors.

Of course, even everyone constantly feels some kind of internal contradiction - it cannot happen without it. True, such a contradiction does not force him to change radically and become completely different, since such changes are already symptoms of a split personality.

Let us immediately note that split personality is not a very rare disease. Its essence is that inside a person there are several personalities at once, who constantly conflict with each other, since each of them wants something of their own. For the time being, they are under control, but one day a mental breakdown may occur, due to which these individuals will begin to live their own lives.

Symptoms of multiple personality disorder can appear at any age. As a rule, the cause of this disease is some serious injury, both physical and mental. Often, severe shocks that occurred in early childhood lead to a split personality. Perhaps a person no longer remembers them, but they still left an indelible imprint on his psyche.

Speaking about mental trauma, it is necessary to emphasize that the mind can create additional personalities precisely in order to block itself from negative memories. Judge for yourself: something bad happened to a person, which means it happened to his personality. He may try to convince himself that this did not happen and thereby mislead his brain about what is real and what is fiction. Gradually a personality is formed to whom nothing has happened. It is possible that she will become dominant. In the event that both can cause big problems.

Symptoms of split personality

A person susceptible to this disease is extremely unbalanced; he often loses touch with reality and may not understand what is happening around him. Multiple personality disorder is characterized by memory lapses, which can be very large. Patients in this case suffer from insomnia, they constantly sweat, and their headaches are very severe.

It is also worth noting that they are rarely able to reason logically and realize that they are really sick. A person who suffers from a split personality can laugh and enjoy life, but within a minute he will want to cry while sitting in the corner. Patients experience conflicting feelings towards themselves, others and everything else that exists in our world.

Split personality: treatment

Clinical hypnosis or therapy may be used for treatment. Multiple personality disorder is still a little-studied disease for which there is no reliable cure.

There are quite a few diseases that can impair the full health of a person’s psyche. Some of them are quite common, while others are rarely diagnosed by psychiatrists, but, nevertheless, are known even to ordinary people far from the world of medicine and psychiatry. Just such rare and well-known pathologies include split personality. Let's look at the symptoms of split personality in men and women and the signs, and also discuss the treatment of this disease.

Multiple personality disorder usually refers to an illness that psychiatrists call dissociative identity disorder. The essence of this pathology, in short, is that in the body of one individual several different personalities are acquired at once. At a certain time, a kind of “switching” may occur, during which one personality is replaced by another. Individuals can have completely different characteristics, ranging from gender and age, to worldview and temperament.

Symptoms of split personality

Doctors warn readers of Popular Health that split personality is not schizophrenia. This is a completely different mental disorder that causes severe imbalance in the patient. Many patients with this diagnosis cannot fully perceive the real world, losing the ability to comprehend what is happening.

There are several classic symptoms of this pathology that can be observed in men and women.

Split personality is often accompanied by memory loss (the occurrence of typical failures). Patients with this pathology often suffer from insomnia and may experience headaches of varying severity. Excessive sweating is a fairly common symptom.

As medical practice shows, patients with split personality almost never can think logically and realize their illness. Pathology can manifest itself with different symptoms, their severity and list depend on the severity of the disease. Patients with this diagnosis:

They can behave completely differently in the same situations; - are unpredictable; - seem mentally unbalanced; - answer routine questions inadequately; - may not be aware of their body; - may temporarily not respond to external stimuli; - can hear voices (auditory hallucinations occur); - may be confused about who they are; - may suddenly leave home, place of work or study, without control of themselves; - forget traumatic experiences in the past; - over time they become depressed, despondent and depressed; - may be subject to seizures with increased activity and even aggressiveness.

The symptoms of split personality constantly progresses and over time leads to almost complete repression of the patient’s real personality.

Typical signs of split personality

To make a diagnosis, doctors usually analyze the presence of typical signs of pathology:

1. The patient has at least a couple of distinguishable identities or personal states, with different and fairly stable worldviews, individual worldviews, etc.

2. Each person has his own personal memory, tastes and preferences, as well as behavioral characteristics.

3. Only one person can be present at a particular time.

4. The individual cannot remember some information that is important for his personality (on a scale greater than ordinary forgetfulness).

5. The pathological condition does not arise under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other substances, or as a result of other diseases.

Features of the treatment of split personality

Treatment of this disorder requires an integrated approach. Often, patients with this diagnosis are hospitalized for their own safety, and sometimes for the safety of others. Split personality requires very long treatment, sometimes throughout almost a lifetime.

Therapy includes psychotherapy, as well as the use of various medications.

Today, when correcting this condition, psychiatrists focus all their efforts on alleviating the symptoms of the pathology. It is believed that reducing the severity of manifestations of dual personality makes it possible to protect the patient and collect different personalities into a whole - into one optimally functioning identity.

Psychotherapeutic treatment usually involves the use of cognitive psychotherapy techniques, family psychotherapy sessions and even hypnotic sessions, etc.

Modern doctors recommend resorting to insight-oriented (with an internal focus) psychodynamic correction. It is believed that this method of cooperation with a doctor helps the patient eliminate previously received trauma and reveal conflicts that led to the emergence of new personalities. Sometimes doctors manage to achieve conflict-free cooperation between individuals who get along with the patient. And this result of therapy is considered very successful.

Drug treatment for dual personality does not provide a pronounced therapeutic effect, but is rather symptomatic. Thus, patients with this diagnosis are often prescribed antidepressants and anxiolytics (anti-anxiety medications). Sometimes it makes sense to use antipsychotics and tranquilizers.

Unfortunately, split personality in men and women is not always amenable to successful treatment.

Multiple personality disorder, even in the 21st century, causes a division of specialists in psychiatry into two camps. Some are sure that such a “deviation from the norm” in the patient is far-fetched, while others are sure that the disease really exists. They provide a lot of evidence of this from real life, accompanying them with symptoms and causes of multiple personality syndrome, and also give a scientific explanation for this phenomenon in psychiatry. In this article we will talk about what multiple personality syndrome is.

What it is?

Dissociative (multiple personality syndrome) is the general name for a patient’s condition in which, in addition to the main personality, at least one more person coexists at the same time. This second one is called subpersonality. She is capable of taking away the right to control a person’s entire body, his feelings, mind, and will from the main (dominant) personality, which is given to a person from birth.

Some psychiatrists are confident that personalities arose under the influence of many fantastic stories, as a result of watching non-scientific programs, and operating with non-scientific terms and facts. Other experts are confident that people suffering from multiple personality syndrome really exist. And proof of this is the works of doctors who describe such disorders long before the advent of psychiatry as a science (around the end of the 18th century).

Does this syndrome really exist?

It is often quite difficult to recognize that one person has several personalities at once. And the patient himself can often claim that his personalities know nothing about each other, they have completely different opinions, their behavior patterns are completely different. But there is no doubt that multiple personality syndrome really exists. Today, experts treat this phenomenon with minimal skepticism and do not try to immediately reject it, but try to explain and characterize it from a scientific point of view.

How different alter egos can have different skills

Over the past twenty years, neuroscience has made quite a big leap forward, lifting the veil of secrecy about the structure of the brain of both humans and animals.
If earlier we could only guess what was hidden in the skull of many representatives of the Earth's population and how this “something” functions, now, especially with the development of MRI technologies, we are becoming closer to the truth, and the explanation of the processes and features of life is becoming more complex. increasingly distinct and clear forms.

And although a certain number of secrets of thinking and nervous activity remain to be revealed, the explanation of some paradoxes has already been crowned with success. Where some see mysticism and divine meanings, others prove that everything has a material, scientific basis.

Illustration: Anna Umerenko.

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The thought process is born from the electrochemical interactions of neurons, the activity of axons and synapses - the cells of our nervous system. Such interactions not only give rise to thoughts and ideas, but also form a personality that is able to accumulate experience, knowledge, master skills and accumulate memories.

If you don’t delve into the specifics of the interaction of neurons, the functioning of the nervous system and the work of parts of the brain (which you can read about in detail and in an accessible form in the works of neurophysiologists and neuropsychologists Vileyanur Ramachandran, Oliver Sacks, Eliezer Sternberg), then this is what the material justification for existence comes down to. personality.

But how to explain those cases when several personalities “lived” in one body? For many years this was considered an unexplained anomaly, and even now, when the connection between cognitive psychology and neuroscience is rather tenuous, it is quite difficult to find a comprehensive scientific explanation. And it is unlikely that humanity would have been able to escape from religious dogmas that consider these cases as “the infusion of several spirits into the mortal body of a person,” if not for technical advances (for example, MRI), which made it possible to study the activity of individual areas of the brain.

Actually, lonely. Many patients with multiple personality disorder are not even aware of the existence of a cohabitant in their body.

What does split personality look like from the outside?

One of the many cases of multiple personality syndrome was considered by neuropsychologist Eliezer Sternberg in one of his works.

A single mother with an unspecified diagnosis of “congenital blindness” complained of memory gaps and could not explain the appearance of the words “I Hate You” and “Crazy” on her body after being out of time, and also discovered new objects in her house that would never have occurred. I didn’t buy it while I was of sound mind and memory.

When the woman arrived at the hospital, she did not know where her bruises and abrasions came from, and also could not remember where she had been the night before.

Her name was Evelyn, she was 35, and she had a very difficult childhood: her own mother abused the girl, locked her in a closet, and when Evelyn was sent to a foster family, her stepfather also abused the girl, and even sexually harassed her.

When the number of loss of time and the inability to give an account of what was happening to her from the moment of “blackout”, and how long this “blackout” lasted in general, took on alarming proportions, Evelyn began to be examined by psychiatrists.

Eliezer J. Sternberg,

practicing physician, neurologist at New Haven Hospital, Yale University

— Evelyn was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder

-
a mental illness, which is also called multiple personality disorder or split personality disorder.
It was as if several different people lived inside Evelyn at once. Among them were a woman named Frannie F. and her daughter Cynthia, as well as a “scary” ten-year-old girl, Sarah, with “thin red hair,” brown eyes and freckles. And finally, Kimmy, an “angelic” four-year-old with blue eyes and short blond hair.

The patient's behavior changed depending on which personality came to the fore. Evelyn herself seemed like an intelligent, mature woman and expressed her thoughts surprisingly clearly.

Having turned into Kimmy, she suddenly began to babble in a childish voice, distorting simple words, for example, calling a purple shirt “fouette.”

She said that the president is “her daddy” and admired the fact that Kiwi

—
it is both a fruit and a bird. She boasted that her older brother was teaching her how to write her name.

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When switching from one personality to another, not only the character, preferences and, in general, the life history that the patient can tell can change. Habits and handwriting may change (and a right-handed person can become left-handed and vice versa), visual acuity may vary, and even the level of physical fitness may vary.

In Evelyn's case, the blindness that doctors had been unable to explain for so long suddenly almost disappeared when Evelyn lost her self and became Kimmy. Her visual acuity varied and directly depended on the personality that was activated at a particular moment. And the number of individuals increased over time.

Remember Billy Milligan, so famous to everyone for the incredible number of personalities that settled in his body - as many as 24! They all also had very different characters and abilities. So how can this be explained, if not through mysticism?

Personality - one, personality - two, or split personality with the widest variation of characters.

Alter ego from a scientific point of view

As a rule, those who have multiple personality disorder have experienced very, very negative experiences in the past. A difficult childhood, psychological trauma, serious, psychologically destructive events in life force our brain to somehow protect itself from adverse effects on the psyche and nervous system. This is necessary for our survival, and it is ingrained in us by evolution.

If our nervous system had not developed protective mechanisms against stress and unpleasant memories, our species would hardly be viable.

Psychological trauma can kill our desire to do anything at all, driving us into depression and forcing us to stare aimlessly at one point. Our brains are designed to protect us from the destructive power of emotional trauma.

The subconscious can distance us from unpleasant memories, and dissociation works better than ever in this case.

This does not mean that everyone who encounters the slightest stress will have a split personality. But people with fairly fragile nervous systems who have been subjected to prolonged abuse may experience this side effect of the defense mechanism.

How does the brain distance such people from traumatic memories? It fragments memory, blocking access to individual memories for the host personality.

All subpersonalities develop from each other fragment of memories, filling the resulting voids in the consciousness (no one needs ownerless memories, this is a gap that the brain considers necessary to fill). This is called fragmentation of consciousness.

Evidence of fragmentation of consciousness

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Where did the idea of ​​fragmentation of consciousness in patients with dissociative identity disorder come from? The same technical advances that were mentioned at the beginning helped in this.

Without a PET scanner (positron emission tomography), which allowed neuroimaging studies, it was hardly possible to come to such a conclusion.

Scientists examined the brains of subjects with multiple personality disorder using a PET scanner while they induced the patients to switch between their alter egos.

It turned out that when switching alter egos, the areas of the amygdala responsible for emotions were sharply activated, but when the switch had already taken place, brain activity in subpersonalities was neutral, as in the host personality. This means that individuals create a certain barrier from experiences of the past and emotional outbursts, protecting them from traumatic experiences.

The study also revealed activity in different parts of the hippocampus, which is the memory center for life events. Depending on which personality came to the fore, a certain area of ​​the hippocampus was activated. This is direct evidence that when a personality is split, consciousness and memories become fragmented.

Each of the personalities has access only to a specific fragment of memory, so Evelyn could not remember in any way what happened to her during the moments of “blackout”. And the activity of other areas of the brain, to which the alter egos also had access, determined the difference in the quality of vision.

Evelyn's blindness was purely neurological and was due to problems accessing the visual cortex.

The location of the hippocampus is marked in red and yellow.

From cognitive psychology to neuroscience

Explaining the nature of split personality is just one example of how neuroscience is moving forward, leaving no chance for mysticism and beliefs in the possession of spirits or the transmigration of souls.

There are still countless unknown corners of our consciousness and features of the functioning of our brain, but today humanity is already going far ahead, using technical installations for diagnostics and experiments.

Perhaps over time, scientists will begin to explore the human psyche not through the “black box” method, trying to predict from external data what is happening inside the skull, but will turn towards neuroscience, which has the courage to look into the black box itself, making it less mysterious and leaving in it as little as possible dark and inexplicable.

Found a typo? Select a fragment and press Ctrl+Enter.

Source: https://newtonew.com/science/kak-raznye-alter-ego-mogut-obladat-raznymi-umeniyami

How to distinguish multiple personality syndrome from schizophrenia

The concepts of schizophrenia and multiple personality syndrome should not be confused, since these are completely different phenomena in psychiatry. Thus, people suffering from schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. Their illness is characterized by the fact that, under the influence of chronic psychosis, they suffer from hallucinations that make them see or hear things that are not really happening. The main symptom of schizophrenia is the presence of a so-called delusional idea in the patient. Approximately 50% of patients hear voices that do not exist in reality.

Multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia have one thing in common: people suffering from these diseases are more likely to commit suicide than patients with other mental disorders.

Diagnostics

Split personality is determined by the following criteria:

1. Identification of at least two entities in patients that have their own character, worldview and behavior. 2. Establishment of a regular and stable type of dissociation. 3. Exclusion of organic pathology using methods: EEG, X-ray, ultrasound, MRI, CT.

If you suspect this disease, you can conduct a split personality test online, determining:

• changes in self-awareness, memory and actions;
• disturbances in emotional life, rapid changes in mood;
• deterioration of relationships with loved ones;
• facts of constant violence, traumatic situations (past and present), excessive professional and personal responsibility.

Video:

If suspicions of split personality are confirmed by testing or questionnaires and stories from others, you should contact a psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Only after individual consultations and a full examination can a specialist make such a diagnosis.

Description of the disease by the patients themselves

Patients suffering from multiple personality disorder may describe their condition as follows:

1. The concept of depersonalization is when the patient says that he is “outside his body.”
2. Derealization, when the patient describes the world around him as unreal for him, as if he is looking at everything that is happening through a distance or a veil of fog.
3. Amnesia. The patient makes every effort, but cannot remember important personal information about himself. Often he forgets even those words that were spoken a few minutes ago.
4. Confusion in awareness of one's own identity. A person suffering from multiple personality syndrome is in a state of complete disorientation. He cannot clearly answer the question of who he considers or imagines himself to be. Often he catches himself thinking that he hates his personality at the moment, when she is engaged in some type of activity (violates traffic rules, drinks alcohol).
5. There is no clear understanding of where a person is, what time it is now, what situation he is in.

A person with multiple personality disorder has one host personality that can provide basic real information about him. Other dissociative states (other personalities) are not mature, they can only talk about individual episodes and sensations from life, their memories are scarce and one-sided. It so happens that the host personality often does not even suspect the presence of other personalities.

Treatment

There are no recommendations on how to treat DID. Doctors prescribe specific treatment in each specific case.

Treatment plans depend on the conditions that occur along with DID and may combine psychotherapy with necessary medications to help with symptoms.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, is the main treatment for people with DID. Methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy can help a person work through and learn to accept the triggers that cause personality changes. In DID, psychotherapy aims to help integrate a person's personality and learn to cope with post-traumatic experiences.

Other types of therapy

Art therapy, movement therapy, and relaxation techniques may all have a place in the treatment of DID. These techniques can help people connect aspects of their consciousness in a low-stress environment.

Multiple Personality Syndrome: Causes

Among all the reasons that can become the impetus for the formation of dissociative identity syndrome in childhood, there is one main one - violence. It can be both emotional and physical. In any case, violence causes irreparable harm to the child’s psyche. The next reason is the incorrect upbringing of parents, when the child experiences severe fear around them or severe psychological discomfort.

Recently, drug addiction and alcoholism have become the cause of a person’s mental health crisis, provoking the emergence of a dissociative personality.

Causes of split personality

Split personality syndrome is a whole device, thanks to which the individual’s brain is able to dismember into parts certain memories or thoughts that are significant to ordinary consciousness. Subconscious images dissected in this way are not erased, as a result of which their repeated reproduction and spontaneous emergence in consciousness becomes possible. Their activity occurs due to the action of the corresponding triggering devices - triggers. Such triggers can be various events and objects surrounding an individual when an incident occurs that is traumatic for him. It is believed that identity splitting is provoked by a combination of the following circumstances: extreme stress, the ability to develop a state of dissociation, as well as the manifestation of protective mechanisms during the individual formation of the organism with an established set of factors inherent in this process. In addition, the manifestation of protective mechanisms can also be observed in childhood. This is due to a lack of participation and a lack of care for the baby at the time of his traumatic experience or with a lack of protection necessary to avoid subsequent experiences that are undesirable for him. In children, a sense of unified identity is not innate. It develops as a consequence of exposure to many different experiences and factors.

Multiple personality syndrome is a rather long and serious process in itself. However, if a subject experiences a dissociative disorder, it will not necessarily indicate the presence of a mental illness. Dissociation to a moderate degree often occurs due to stress, as well as in people deprived of sleep for a long time (sleep deprivation). In addition, dissociation can occur when receiving a dose of nitric oxide, for example, during dental surgery.

One can also note, among the most common variations of the dissociative state, a state in which the subject is completely immersed in the plot of a film or absorbed in a book, so that the reality around him seems to fall out of the time-spatial continuum, as a result of which time flies by and unnoticed. In addition, there is a form of dissociation that arises as a result of hypnotic influence. In this case, a temporary transformation of the state occurs, which is familiar to consciousness. Often, individuals experience a dissociative state when practicing certain religions that use putting subjects into trance states.

In moderate forms of dissociative disorder, as well as complex ones, traumatic experiences experienced by people in childhood, caused by cruel treatment, are identified as factors provoking the splitting of consciousness. In addition, the appearance of such forms can often be found among participants in armed assaults, military operations, torture of various types and scales, and those who have suffered a car accident or some kind of natural disaster. The formation of dissociative clinical symptoms is relevant for subjects with pronounced reactions in post-traumatic post-stress disorder or in a disorder caused by somatization.

According to studies conducted earlier by North American scientists, more than 98% of patients (adults) who had a split in personal identity experienced violent situations in childhood, of which 85% have documented facts of this statement. As a result, it became possible to assert that mental violence, intimate coercion experienced in childhood, is the main reason provoking the occurrence of split personality. The next factor that can cause a dissociative disorder is the loss of a close relative at an early age, a serious illness, or another stressful event that entailed large-scale experiences.

In addition to the listed reasons, factors that provoke splitting of consciousness include genetic disposition and lack of help in case of cruel treatment by strangers.

Also in the modern world, another reason has appeared that causes a split identity - an addiction to computer games, in which individuals often become close to the character they have chosen. Many experts are confident that in recent years, gaming addiction, together with Internet addiction, are the fundamental reasons for the increase in the number of diseases. In addition, individuals with a weak character, weak-willed people who seek protection for themselves on a subconscious level constitute a risk group for the development of a dissociative disorder.

Signs (symptoms) of the disorder

How does multiple personality syndrome manifest itself? Signs of the disorder are as follows:

1. Amnesia, when the patient cannot tell basic information about himself as an individual.
2. The presence of two or more subpersonalities, each of which has its own model of behavior, character, habits, gestures, race, gender, conversation, accent, etc. A subpersonality can even be an animal.
3. Switching from one personality to another. This process takes from a few minutes to several days.
4. Depression.
5. Sudden mood swings.
6. Suicidal tendencies.
7. Sleep disorders (both insomnia and nightmares).
8. Feelings of anxiety on the verge of panic or phobias.
9. Often drug or alcohol use.
10. Rituals and compulsions.
11. Hallucinations (both visual and auditory).
12. Eating disorders.
13. Severe headaches.
14. A state of trance.
15. Self-persecution and tendency to violence, including towards oneself.

Many patients say that, being under the guidance of one person or another, they cannot control either their body or their actions. In essence, they are third-party observers of everything that their personality does with their body and the world around them. They are often ashamed of such actions; they admit that their master personality would never do such a thing and would not even dare.

ICD-10 code

Dissociative identity disorder, including split personality, is classified by medicine as a group of disorders coded F44 .

Personal pathologies in this category are of a pronounced nature, very clearly manifested, but do not have an organic etiology. These disorders are caused by psychogenic causes and can cover various areas of the personality and social life of patients.

The category of conversion pathologies combines personality disorders with memory loss at certain periods of time, “altered” perception of oneself (the creation of several or multiple images of one’s “I”), and temporary loss of control over body movements.

In this regard, dissociative disorders can take the form of:

• amnesia, “switching off” from memory traumatic or unpleasant events;
• fugues, a combination of memory loss with a certain ritual of movements (automatic performance of ordinary tasks and duties, sudden change of one’s location);
• stupor, a short-term “escape” from reality, with a lack of response to verbal, auditory or kinesthetic external stimuli;
• trance and obsession, i.e. lack of perception of oneself and the surrounding world, “withdrawal” into unreal (fictional) sensations and feelings.

Closer to the concept of split personality in ICD-10 is the term “multiple personality disorder” ( F44.81 ), one of the serious damage to the psyche, manifested by temporary or permanent replacement of the real “I” with a fictitious one, in order to alleviate traumatic feelings and experiences. In some other psychological disorders, a short-term tendency to dissociation may occur.

Such diseases ( F60 ) include:

• paranoid states (paranoia is excluded), with high sensitivity to criticism from others, suspiciousness and suspiciousness;
• schizoid disorders (but not schizophrenia), with low social motivation, constant fantasizing, a desire to retire from the world;
• dissocial disorder with the development of total indifference to loved ones and the surrounding world;
• emotional pathologies of personality, characterized by impulsiveness, whims, unpredictable behavior;
• hysterical disorders with a tendency to demonstrative behavior, theatricality, and pronounced egoism. In this group of diseases there are only mild manifestations of “withdrawal” into oneself or from the world; deep “splitting” and loss of one’s own “I” do not occur.

Multiple Personality Syndrome: Examples

According to the most conservative estimates, the world today knows about 40 thousand patients suffering from multiple personality syndrome. The most famous, both in psychiatry and in general society, are the case histories of such people as Louis Vive (one of the first officially recorded cases of dissociative personality), Judy Castelli, Robert Oxnam, Kim Noble, Truddy Chase, Shirley Mason, Chris Costner Sizemore, Billy Milligan, Juanita Maxwell. Most of these patients suffered from severe violence in childhood, which caused them to develop dissociative identity disorder.

Diagnostic criteria. Differential diagnosis

As mentioned above, modern psychiatry considers dissociative identity disorder under F44.8. - other dissociative (conversion) disorders. A big advantage of ICD-10 is the presence of certain criteria on the basis of which one or another diagnosis can be made.

The phenomenon of multiple personality also has such criteria. These include the following manifestations.

• The existence in the individual’s psyche of two or more different personalities, one of which exists at any given moment in time.
• Each personality has its own mental abilities, way of thinking and behavioral characteristics. A situation is possible in which one of the personalities completely determines a person’s behavior.
• There are certain memory impairments when a person cannot remember some information - most often that which relates to another person, and to those events that happened to him under the “supremacy” of another person.
• An important diagnostic criterion is the fact that the presence of all of the above symptoms should not be due to the influence of alcohol or other psychoactive substances.

According to ICD-10, category F44 in its broadest sense includes dissociative (conversion) disorders that fall under the category of neurotic disorders. The presence of a hysteroid radical in the individual’s psyche plays a very important and, perhaps, integral role in the occurrence of dissociative disorders. Without it there is no conversion (dissociation).

It is very important to distinguish dissociative identity disorder from other mental illnesses that have completely different development mechanisms and arise for other reasons. After all, as you know, the lion's share of success in the treatment of any disease is a correctly made diagnosis.

Photo: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/face-faces-dialogue-talk-psyche-3189805/

Many symptoms of dissociative identity disorder can lead a researcher (doctor) to believe that a person has the following diseases.

• Schizophrenia. “Divination” in schizophrenia is characterized by the fact that a person’s actions and thoughts are controlled by someone from the outside. This symptom is called mental automatism. In this case, the individual’s memory does not suffer, while with dissociation the person does not remember the events that another person committed.
• Bipolar affective disorder and other mood disorders. A distinctive feature of dissociative identity disorder is the presence of the main symptom - multiple personalities. Having identified this symptom, we will see that mood disorders are only secondary; they can be a consequence (not at all obligatory!) of a traumatic situation.
• Organic disorders (anxiety, depression and a number of others). The main feature of any organic disorder is the presence of a physical cause causing this disorder. Such causes may be traumatic brain injury, chronic cerebral ischemia, brain tumors, etc. With dissociative identity disorder, we are dealing with the consequences of a powerful traumatic situation, i.e. with psychological spectrum causes.

The differential diagnosis of the phenomenon of multiple personalities can, in fact, be carried out with any mental illness. However, you should remember that one symptom that fundamentally distinguishes it from any other disease. This important difference lies in the name of this phenomenon - the phenomenon of multiple personality. What is important is the proven (based on the above criteria) presence of two or more personalities in an individual.

Billy Milligan

Billy Milligan is a person with multiple personality disorder. He became known to the general public thanks to an absolutely incredible court decision against him. Thus, in the United States, a court found him not guilty of committing several serious crimes due to his multiple personality syndrome. Billy Milligan underwent a thorough psychiatric examination, the results of which not only did not constitute a medical secret, but were even published in newspapers, magazines, and were featured on television programs. At the trial, 4 psychiatrists confirmed the diagnosis of dissociative personality under oath.

Billy received medical attention many times. Billy Milligan's Multiple Personality Syndrome was discussed very actively. Society is still divided into two camps and is debating who Milligan really was: a skilled swindler who managed a large number of psychiatrists, scientists, judges, juries and police officers, or whether he really suffered from the 24 personalities living in him and did not belong to himself.

Billy Milligan's Multiple Personalities

The cause of Billy Milligan's syndrome was the violence and humiliation he experienced as a child. Psychiatrists counted as many as 24 personalities in him. Each of them had its own name and received a detailed description.

After being declared insane by the court, Milligan is sent for treatment to the Athens State Hospital psychiatric clinic. Thanks to highly qualified personnel, as a result of the work done, Billy Milligan was discovered to have 10 personalities, and after a while - 14 more.

The personalities of this person were of different ages, genders, nationalities, different in character, inclinations, habits, and behavior. Some of them spoke with an accent. So who got along with the person who was diagnosed with ""? Kevin, a 20-year-old guy who takes turns with Phil - both hooligans capable of crimes - takes turns leading Milligan; 14-year-old boy Denny, who was terrified of men; David, 8, who was responsible for storing pain; Adalana is a 19-year-old lesbian who is accused of committing one of the serious crimes; boy Sean - a deaf disabled person with disabilities and many others.

After 10 years of intensive treatment, Billy Milligan was released from a psychiatric clinic. The result of the treatment was the doctors’ conclusion, which stated that the patient fully identifies himself, which means that he got rid of all subpersonalities. After leaving the clinic, Milligan disappeared to communicate with the press and society; it is not known for certain whether the treatment had a real result, whether he got rid of all 24 personalities and whether they returned to him over time.

Manga

The problem of multiple personality syndrome has always interested not only psychiatrists, but also artists. Thus, a popular work, the main theme of which is the manga MPD Psycho. It represents Japanese comics. The history of their origin goes back at least one thousand years.

The manga MPD Psycho describes an amazing and interesting story from the mystical detective genre. It contains overtly cruel and bloody scenes, often straddling the border between madness and logic. The main character of the manga is a detective who works using intellectual methods to solve crimes. He suffers from multiple personality syndrome. He has to solve bloody crimes that are regularly committed. The main clue is the presence of a barcode under the killer's eye. But the detective himself has exactly the same mark. How can all these coincidences be connected?

Scientific works that provide the most complete information about multiple personality syndrome

Dissociative identity syndrome has occupied a leading place in the works of many scientists for decades. One of the first descriptions dates back to 1791, when the Stuttgart doctor E. Gmelin described a German woman who, under the influence of the bloody events of the French Revolution, began to suffer from multiple personality syndrome. Her other “I” is a French woman who spoke perfect French.

A special place is occupied by books by Chinese specialists not only on the study of the syndrome, but also on methods of treating it.

In documents, until the mid-20th century, specialists officially registered and described in detail about 76 cases of dissociative personality.

Writers also paid close attention to the topic of multiple personality syndrome and dedicated their works to it. The general public was told about what multiple personality syndrome is in the books: “The Three Faces of Eve” and “Sybil.” The first was created by psychiatrists K. Thigpen and H. Cleckley in 1957. The book tells the story of their patient Eva White's dissociative personality. The second famous book, Sybil, was published in 1973. Her character also suffered from this disorder.

Today there are no preventive measures that could prevent the development of multiple personality syndrome. The main cause of the disease is psychological or physical abuse of children. All efforts should be devoted to preventing such situations. If violence does occur, then it is necessary to take action and also refer the child for help to a psychologist who will help him survive the severe stress of the trauma.

The term “split personality disorder” appeared quite a long time ago, so the symptoms of this disorder have already been identified and studied. In the modern world, this phenomenon is becoming more and more common, and all because of the frantic pace of life, the huge number and emotional stress.

Split personality is a disease that is expressed by the appearance of a second personality in an individual. Simply put, one person can express himself completely differently in the same situation. Behavior depends precisely on which half is dominant at that moment. There are cases when the disease worsens so much that a person ceases to remember what he did some time ago. It feels like he lives in different, or rather parallel, worlds that never intersect.

A mild form of this disease manifests itself in this way: a person is aware of himself as a single whole, but at the same time from time to time he commits such actions or says things that are completely uncharacteristic of his personality. Quite often, split personality appears in people under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

A more complex form of the disease is often called schizophrenic splitting. In this case, the person will be prescribed serious treatment.

Probably everyone has heard stories about people from a psychiatric hospital who consider themselves kings, pharaohs and other historical figures? These are people suffering from split personality disorder.

Signs of split personality

Some of the most common signs of split personality are considered to be:

• imbalance;
• loss of connection with the outside world;
• partial memory loss;
• sleep problems;
• severe headaches;
• increased sweating;
• lack of logic;
• sudden change in mood, etc.

A disease such as “split personality” can manifest itself at any age. The cause, most often, is a serious psychological shock. There are cases that a person does not even remember the cause of stress, but since the psyche was subject to a certain influence, the disease can manifest itself after many years.

By creating an additional personality, the individual tries to forget or at least block negative emotions and memories. There is a so-called self-hypnosis that there was no problem, that everything is fine. In this case, the new personality created by man will dominate life.

A person who suffers from this disease quite often may become lost in space and not feel reality. You can often observe a picture when a person at a certain moment rejoices in his life, and after a couple of minutes he cries and wants to die. Patients constantly experience conflicting feelings towards people and situations around them. What is important is that they never realize that they have the disease.

Personality - one, personality - two...

A rare mental phenomenon known as “split personality,” unlike most diseases in this area, is of interest not only to psychiatrists.

The mysterious essence of this pathology attracts the attention of a huge number of people, and many books have been written and films have been made on the topic of split personality. Dissociative disorder is what doctors call this condition.

Of course, people with such mental deviations have been encountered at all times, and if in ancient times such inappropriate behavior was attributed to the machinations of demons, then as psychiatry developed, the true cause of this illness was found. It turned out that the origins of a split personality sometimes begin at the moment of a person’s birth or even before his birth, when the formation of a schizoid character occurs.

If a child with such a risk factor grows up in unfavorable conditions (subjected to violence and bullying), then the stream of consciousness begins to change, and then either subpersonalities or personalities come to light.

Moreover, there is a significant difference between them: the subpersonality can obey the true “I” of a person, and the “I” itself is aware that someone else lives inside it. But with personality it is more difficult - even if “I” knows that it is no longer the only one, it is simply not able to influence the personality.

The division of “I” into individuals is a kind of defense mechanism when the child’s psyche creates another “character” in response to severe emotional shock. With the help of the created phantom personality, the true “I” of the child forgets about the experienced mental trauma, and therefore, when the second personality subsequently comes out, the “real self” does not remember anything about what its other half did.

The famous Paracelsus, who lived in the 16th century, described in his writings the case of a woman whose money was constantly disappearing. As it turned out, she herself took and hid them, so to speak, in another form, and when her real “I” returned, she did not remember anything about it. Of course, more often it happened that people suffering from split personality did not end up with doctors, but in the warm embrace of the Inquisition, which did not stand on ceremony with them.

But starting from the 18th century, doctors began to offer ways to treat splitting. Good results were achieved by the French doctor Mesmer, who cured such patients with the help of animal magnetism. The doctor believed that every living object has a certain energy that can be transferred to other objects through magnetization.

It is precisely because of the incorrect distribution of animal magnetism (or fluid) that the body can malfunction - hence all diseases. To normalize the flow of animal magnetism, Mesmer used the technique of touch and magnetic passes, with the help of which the doctor’s fluids passed to the patient. In those days, little was known about hypnosis, but this was precisely the effect produced by Mesmer’s sessions, which contributed to the revival of the forgotten ancient method of treatment - hypnosis.

Although cases of true split personality are very rare, patients who “contain” several “doubles” are even rarer. In 1915, an article by the American doctor Henry Prince, “The Case of Doris' Multiple Personality,” was published, which described the medical history of a girl named Doris Fisher, whose “I” contained five personalities at once.

The first of them appeared when a drunken father forcefully threw a three-year-old girl to the floor. It was then that “bad Margaret” emerged, who was scolded and punished, and subsequently three more were formed. Eventually, Doris ended up in a mental asylum.

Since it was not possible to cure her using traditional methods, the doctors decided that the girl was possessed by demons, and therefore called for the help of a medium, who managed to unite all the girl’s personalities into one whole “I” using the same magnetism and hypnosis.

In 1887, the neighbors of a certain Mr. Brown, who arrived a few months earlier in the town of Norristown, were awakened by his screams. Poor Mr. Brown was running around in a state of extreme excitement and begging everyone to tell him where he was and what was happening to him. He refused to call himself Brown, insisting that he was a preacher named Bern, and he lived in Greene, but did not even know about this town!

In Norristown Mr. Brown-Burn was engaged in the stationery trade. As it turned out, Preacher Byrne really disappeared from Green, and his family searched for him for two weeks. Professor James became interested in this incident and persuaded Bern, who had returned to the family, to conduct a hypnosis session on him, which did not end entirely successfully.

After hypnosis, Burn became Brown again, did not recognize his wife and said that he had never heard of any Mr. Burn. The further fate of this person is unknown.

An interesting case of split personality was described at the beginning of the twentieth century. The young Frenchwoman Felida combined girls with completely different personalities: one was cheerful and cheerful, the second was complex and shy.

The transition from one personality to another was preceded by fainting, after which one half of the “I” remembered absolutely nothing about the other. Once again, after such a transition, Felida discovered that she was nine months pregnant.

Personalities (multiplets), into which a person’s true “I” is divided, in 75% of cases are felt by the subconscious as children under 12 years of age, which is associated with traumatic factors in childhood. In half of the cases, people suffering from dual personality disorder take on the appearance of the opposite sex, and may also differ in nationality and have completely opposite views, abilities and skills. Often individuals hate each other.

People with paranormal abilities, as well as mediums, shamans, etc., know how to independently plunge into a state of trance, that is, they master the technique of self-hypnosis. People with split consciousness also have this ability, and among different cultures and regions these states are even particularly distinguished.

For example, among the Eskimos this is piblokto - a state of extreme excitement, accompanied by inappropriate human behavior, in which he screams with animal voices and tears clothes. Usually after a seizure a person does not remember anything.

But among the Malays, sudden attacks of rage are called amok - people who fall into this state are capable of causing harm to themselves and others, but subsequently the memories of this are not preserved. According to anthropologists L.K. Suryani and Gordon Jensen, the nature of split personality can take on a mass character.

For example, this is typical for shamanic cultures on the island of Bali, where multiple personalities in a person are a normal phenomenon, since people are sure that they are not a product of the subconscious of the person himself, but the infusion of souls or spirits into a person.

The most unusual case of split personality can be called the case history of William Stanley Mulligan, whose consciousness contained 24 mental subjects! Mulligan repeatedly committed crimes of varying severity, but the court was forced to acquit him, since it was possible to prove that the crimes were committed by a completely different person, although he lived in Mulligan.

The Mulligan personalities who periodically broke free were of different genders, ages, nationalities, had varying degrees of intelligence and spoke different languages.

Cases of actual multiple personality disorder are quite rare, and over the past 80 years, only about 150 patients with such a diagnosis have been described. Spiritualists believe that everything is to blame for the spirits or “demons” that occupy the human body.

Psychiatrists are confident that the reason lies in a mental illness in which the integral “I” is broken into fragments. The impetus for this can be unfulfilled desires and suppressed ambitions.

Antagonistic traits often coexist in people: kindness and evil, good nature and aggression, optimism and pessimism. In the event of a breakdown in the psyche, all these traits are combined into separate personalities, and thus one person becomes the habitat of his mental unrealized doubles.

It turns out that several people can have the same set of DNA, only in one body! This means that under certain circumstances, from the same child it is possible to raise people with completely opposite moral principles.

Modern psychocoding specialists have techniques that allow them to “plant” several personalities in a person’s subconscious, with their own characters and memories.

Such zombie people can be programmed for a certain word - an anchor, after which one or another person begins to dominate. And doesn’t this mean that a person is just a biocomputer, which can easily be “rewritten” to carry out this or that program?