What is Multi-personality disorder?

A brain, a body but there are many personalities living together? That is absolutely true.

Rare disease Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) , or a new name than the Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) , is a very interesting topic surrounding a rare disease. meet.

Maybe you see it in movies, read in books and see this disease . too miraculous to be real: How in a living body, many different personalities represent many others each other coexist? Can the human brain break that limit, creating a whole new person for its host?

Images in the movie Split - Separation of Multi-personality disease.

So what is this multiple personality disease?

It is a psychological disorder , born AT LEAST two personalities in the same person. Usually, this disease is accompanied by dementia that cannot be explained by normal forgetting.

For example, you might forget the key here, there or unconsciously drive through a familiar street without realizing you did. But in people with multiple personality disorders (asking for permission to be called multiple personality), they will not remember what they did when a certain personality was reigning. At those times, they often thought they were going to sleep. Dementia, not being aware of things that happened in the past is a major feature of the disease and of people with multiple personality traits.

The picture depicts a multi-personality patient.

Don't be confused, this disease is not the same as paranoid schizophrenia . People with schizophrenia often hear another voice in their heads full of negativity, aggression and suspicion of others, assuming that everyone is mean. They will act according to that voice, often these acts leave bad consequences for society.

This disease is also one of the most controversial disorders in neurology, there are many different opinions about diagnostic methods as well as the treatment of multiple personality. Although there are no intensive epidemiological studies or long-term treatment studies, most people believe that this is not a disease that can heal itself over time.

Symptoms are also different in different patients. According to the International Research on Injury and Psychological Research, the disease exists in about 1% to 3% of the global population, 1% to 5% of inpatient psychiatric patients at Europe and North America suffer from this. North America is also the place where the most common cases of multiple personality disorder occur.

Symptoms are also different in different patients.

The cause of multiple personality disease is not (or is not yet) clearly defined, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the multi-personality formation as a natural reaction to psychological trauma when patients young, create a cover to protect yourself from unpleasant memories.

This is also a frequently mentioned topic whenever legal issues are mentioned, because in the past, there have been rare cases where murderers have escaped guilt after doctors have determined that they have suffered This special mental illness.

Famous cases related to Multi-personality psychology in the past

Mary Kendall and memory gaps

The study is based on the book Consciousness and Intentionality by author Grant Gillett and John McMillan.

In 1994, neurologists conducted research and discussed a lot about the case of a 35-year-old woman, Mary Kendall . Ms. Mary does not have many social relationships, she spends more time caring and helping others.

Mary herself has a long history of prescriptions provided by the hospital, including chronic hand pain. The pain caused her to find a therapist for help.

During the course of treatment, she showed many different personalities, an expression only found in patients with multiple personality disorders. Along with her being easily hypnotized and her memory often has unexplainable gaps, doctors are even more likely to assert that Mary is a personality.

The cause of multiple personality disease is not (or is not) clearly defined.

She began to discover gaps in her memory when she noticed that many times the gas tank was full when she returned home, but ran out the next morning when she took the car to work. It happened so often that she began to record the odometer on the car. She realized that every night, the clock increased by about 80 to 160 km, but she did not remember that in the night she went anywhere.

When the doctor performed Mary's "hypnosis" , a strange voice rang out "It's time for people to know about me". Another personality appeared, more hostile than Mary's concern, taking care of others. This second character named Marian said that she often went for a night walk to "solve personal problems".

This second Marian personality despised Mary for her weakness: Mary was a pathetic man, wasting all of his time caring about other people's problems. During the follow-up process, Mary revealed a total of 6 distinct personalities, most of which were opposite to each other.

It is quite common for personalities to take control of Mary, and often the personality of Marian not being very friendly is the one who creates situations that threaten the remaining characters, among them a personality bearing the thoughts and voices of a 6-year-old child. When the psychiatrist suggested that they want to talk more closely with other personalities, Marian refused, saying "that violates the mutual trust relationship between doctors and patients".

North America is also the place where the most common cases of multiple personality disorder occur.

During the treatment process, many painful memories of the childhood beaten and abused by the father were aroused, accompanied by a little regret that Mary was unable to protect the other brothers from her father's death. evil. Mary also recalled that her mother, though rarely beating her, forced her to take on the housework as a child.

It is also the evidence linking the painful memories that led to the formation of different personalities in a patient with multiple personality disorder.

After 4 years of treatment, some personality has a bit of common ground has merged into one, but she herself is still affected by the separation of personality and the other personality still constantly fighting with each other, won control.

The Hillside Strangler - The Hillside Strangler

Kenneth Bianchi, or with the criminal he is known for - The strangler on the hillside, is a serial killer, famous for the series of crimes he has done with his relative, Angelo Buono . Two murderers have made a total of 12 rape and murder cases.

Around October 1977 until February 1978, both names made a total of 10 internal cases in the Los Angeles area. First, two assassins aim at red-light street girls and gradually, they transfer objects to women and young girls. After causing the crime, they often left the victims under the hillsides in the Glendale Hightland park area, thus forming the name "The Hillside Strangler".

After Bianchi moved to New York, he did two more murders, the same way as the victims in LA. But because there were no accomplices, he was more careless and revealed himself.

Kenneth Bianchi at trial court.

At her trial, Bianchi defended herself that he was mentally ill, asserting that another personality named Steve Walker had raped and murdered the other women. His "crazy" action even tricked some experts - who later made the diagnosis that Bianchi had multiple personality disorder.

But investigators resorted to another psychiatrist to redefine the problem, his name being Martin Orne.

When Dr. Orne suggested to Bianchi that in a case of this disorder, the patient would often develop three or more personalities and based on the doctor's judgment, Bianchi would have created herself. another character named "Billy" , in order for investigators to doubt them.

Later, investigators also discovered that the name "Steve Walker" was the identity of a student Bianchi had tried to steal before, when he tried to "impersonate" a character named Steve Walker. The police also found many documents related to modern psychological diseases, to help him study and improve his "play" more, in preparation for the case of arrest.

The fact that a third personality appeared in part made Dr. Orne doubt the "disease" Bianchi was having. The third personality, Billy, appears when Bianchi is "hypnotized" and then, following the suggestion of Orne, imagine his lawyer is in the room. Bianchi also really shook hands with that imaginary lawyer, an extremely unusual behavior for those who were hypnotized. And so Orne concluded that Bianchi did not have Multiple Personality.

People with this disease are not many, but enough to prove the disease is real.

Outlined, along with his desire to receive leniency from the court, Bianchi admits to falsely posing as well as witnessing before Buono's crimes. Both were imprisoned with the crimes mentioned above. Buono received a life sentence and died in prison in 2002; Bianchi also received a life sentence, filed a pledge of forgiveness in 2010 but was refused.

Conclusion

The number of people with Discrimination Disorder or Multi-personality Disorders is not much, but that is enough to prove that the disease is completely real. They show us that the human brain remains a hidden body of many secrets or even, the potentials that humans have not yet discovered.