Healthinmind Mental Health Disorders Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) This is the new name for what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder captured the popular imagination and inspired book and movie plots. In order to be diagnosed with DID, the person must have at least two distinct personalities, and may have many more. In half the cases, the patient has 10 or more! There are also the usual exclusions: the disorder cannot be accounted for by the effects of drugs or a general medical condition. The symptoms typically start 6 or 7 years before the person is seen by a mental health professional. To be diagnosed, each of the two or more personalities has to assume control of the person's behavior at one time or another. DID also includes an aspect of Dissociative Amnesia ; that is, the person with DID is unable to recall personal information, and the degree of forgetting is too great to be accounted for by normal processes. The different personalities forget different things, and the more dominant personalities typically remember more than the more passive personalities. | |
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