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From my understanding, DID is not a well accepted diagnosis my psychologists. I can't comment about this person specifically, but in many cases people diagnosed

From my understanding, DID is not a well accepted diagnosis my psychologists. I can't comment about this person specifically, but in many cases people diagnosed with DID actually have borderline personality disorder. It's a condition characterized by an inability to regulate emotions. They tend to experience their emotions in the extreme, regard others as either entirely good or entirely bad, etc. People with this condition are also very emotionally fragile, and are very suggestible. If a doctor starts asks them a leading question about having multiple personalities, they may internalize that and act accordingly. Source: my father, a clinical psychologist

protonfish 11y ago
They also crave attention.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
DanBC 11y ago
BPD is very different to DID. They don't share any similar symptoms. Your suggestibility suggestion doesn't match any of the people I know with the diagnosis (and I know many people with the diagnosis). I guess it's possible, but not if you tie it to BPD. Some nice descriptions of BPD are in "Meeting the Challenge, Making a Difference": http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meeting-the-challenge-making-a-difference-a-new-personality-disorder-practitioner-guide.html http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meet... I agree that DID is either unlikely or fantastically rare.
- openasocket 11y ago
  I think suggestibility wasn't exactly the right word for it. One of the primary characteristics of BPD is a poor sense of self. That is, they are often unsure of what their long term goals are and what their values and opinions are. I think the DSM refers to it as a "pattern of instability of self-image." The thing you linked to phrases it as "A difficult relationship to ‘self’ such as difficulties with identity, self-esteem, feeling ‘different’ to others, or a sense that they are failing in the world." In the mild or moderate cases a person with unstable sense of self presents as someone who doesn't know what they want in life. In extreme cases, where the patient's view of themselves frequently changes, it would look a lot like DID. I agree it's not the typical presentation of BPD.
meshko 11y ago
+1 this is pretty much exactly the explanation I got from my psychiatrist relative.
angry-hacker 11y ago
I'm not qualified to have a strong opinion, but I know one very interesting criminal case. In fact, there are many. But there's a guy called Thomas Dee Huskey aka “Zoo Man (https://www.bizarrepedia.com/multiple-personality-disorder https://www.bizarrepedia.com/multiple-personality-disorder) A serial killer who killed prostitutes. He was described as dumb as a box of rocks, but his other personality, who allegedly committed the crimes, was left-handed. It's extremely difficult to fake it, even if you have high IQ. The handwritings experts agreed they are handwritings of "two different persons". There were many other facts I can't remember right now, but even the prosecutor agreed this guy probably has DID. And that's rare...
- thelastguy 11y ago
  Unfortunately, the fact that he is a psychopathic serial killer means that he's most likely faking it. It doesn't mean that Multiple Personality Disorder isn't real. It just means that he's just using Multiple Personality Disorder as an excuse.
azakai 11y ago
The article mentions just that: yes, it is a controversial diagnosis among psychologists and psychiatrists. However, the point of the article is that data is accumulating that shows that DID can manifest in ways we can measure on brain scans. It's not just that this woman says she can't see, the brain scans confirm her visual cortex is not active in some of her personalities. That is strong evidence that the popular opinion about psychologists, that you mention, may be wrong.
- openasocket 11y ago
  This is a very interesting find, though there are alternative explanations. People "losing" their sight due to a psychological condition has been documented for a very long time. In fact, I believe Freud treated a women with so-called hysterical blindness. Hysteria (now called conversion disorder) has been documented to cause these kinds of symptoms, and often the symptoms are intermittent and are brought on by emotional stress. It's possible that this person has borderline personality disorder and conversion disorder. Though I don't know if there are any cases of someone having both, it makes some sense that they would be co-occurring. All that said, is there really that much difference between a person who genuinely believes and acts like they have DID and someone who "really" has DID? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc... I suppose the evidence that would really win me over would be someone designing a novel therapy or medication which helps people with DID, but is not effective on people with borderline personality disorder or similar conditions. Because at that point the label actually becomes useful.
  - azakai 11y ago
    I don't think hysterical blindness is an alternative explanation. It's what's going on here, but, it happens in just one personality. That the different personalities can have entirely separate conditions like hysterical blindness is very strong support for the separate identities being in fact separate. In addition, the fact that brain scans confirm the psychological/hysterical blindness actually happens at a neurological level as well, proves this isn't a case of malingering or of a high-level psychological disorder. This is happening at the lowest brain level we are aware of. Even with that evidence, I suppose one can still ask "but are they 'really' separate personalities"? And I think you're right that if it quacks like a duck and so forth, we might as well call it a duck. Another perspective: if we saw those personalities on different physical people - very distinct, both psychologically and neurologically - we would have no problem accepting them as different people. The only challenge here is that they occur in the same physical person. Perhaps that's not reason enough to dismiss them as separate.

protonfish 11y ago

They also crave attention.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

DanBC 11y ago

BPD is very different to DID. They don't share any similar symptoms. Your suggestibility suggestion doesn't match any of the people I know with the diagnosis (and I know many people with the diagnosis). I guess it's possible, but not if you tie it to BPD. Some nice descriptions of BPD are in "Meeting the Challenge, Making a Difference": http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meeting-the-challenge-making-a-difference-a-new-personality-disorder-practitioner-guide.html http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meet... I agree that DID is either unlikely or fantastically rare.

openasocket 11y ago
I think suggestibility wasn't exactly the right word for it. One of the primary characteristics of BPD is a poor sense of self. That is, they are often unsure of what their long term goals are and what their values and opinions are. I think the DSM refers to it as a "pattern of instability of self-image." The thing you linked to phrases it as "A difficult relationship to ‘self’ such as difficulties with identity, self-esteem, feeling ‘different’ to others, or a sense that they are failing in the world." In the mild or moderate cases a person with unstable sense of self presents as someone who doesn't know what they want in life. In extreme cases, where the patient's view of themselves frequently changes, it would look a lot like DID. I agree it's not the typical presentation of BPD.

meshko 11y ago

+1 this is pretty much exactly the explanation I got from my psychiatrist relative.

angry-hacker 11y ago

I'm not qualified to have a strong opinion, but I know one very interesting criminal case. In fact, there are many. But there's a guy called Thomas Dee Huskey aka “Zoo Man (https://www.bizarrepedia.com/multiple-personality-disorder https://www.bizarrepedia.com/multiple-personality-disorder) A serial killer who killed prostitutes. He was described as dumb as a box of rocks, but his other personality, who allegedly committed the crimes, was left-handed. It's extremely difficult to fake it, even if you have high IQ. The handwritings experts agreed they are handwritings of "two different persons". There were many other facts I can't remember right now, but even the prosecutor agreed this guy probably has DID. And that's rare...

thelastguy 11y ago
Unfortunately, the fact that he is a psychopathic serial killer means that he's most likely faking it. It doesn't mean that Multiple Personality Disorder isn't real. It just means that he's just using Multiple Personality Disorder as an excuse.

azakai 11y ago

The article mentions just that: yes, it is a controversial diagnosis among psychologists and psychiatrists. However, the point of the article is that data is accumulating that shows that DID can manifest in ways we can measure on brain scans. It's not just that this woman says she can't see, the brain scans confirm her visual cortex is not active in some of her personalities. That is strong evidence that the popular opinion about psychologists, that you mention, may be wrong.

openasocket 11y ago
This is a very interesting find, though there are alternative explanations. People "losing" their sight due to a psychological condition has been documented for a very long time. In fact, I believe Freud treated a women with so-called hysterical blindness. Hysteria (now called conversion disorder) has been documented to cause these kinds of symptoms, and often the symptoms are intermittent and are brought on by emotional stress. It's possible that this person has borderline personality disorder and conversion disorder. Though I don't know if there are any cases of someone having both, it makes some sense that they would be co-occurring. All that said, is there really that much difference between a person who genuinely believes and acts like they have DID and someone who "really" has DID? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc... I suppose the evidence that would really win me over would be someone designing a novel therapy or medication which helps people with DID, but is not effective on people with borderline personality disorder or similar conditions. Because at that point the label actually becomes useful.
- azakai 11y ago
  I don't think hysterical blindness is an alternative explanation. It's what's going on here, but, it happens in just one personality. That the different personalities can have entirely separate conditions like hysterical blindness is very strong support for the separate identities being in fact separate. In addition, the fact that brain scans confirm the psychological/hysterical blindness actually happens at a neurological level as well, proves this isn't a case of malingering or of a high-level psychological disorder. This is happening at the lowest brain level we are aware of. Even with that evidence, I suppose one can still ask "but are they 'really' separate personalities"? And I think you're right that if it quacks like a duck and so forth, we might as well call it a duck. Another perspective: if we saw those personalities on different physical people - very distinct, both psychologically and neurologically - we would have no problem accepting them as different people. The only challenge here is that they occur in the same physical person. Perhaps that's not reason enough to dismiss them as separate.