Multiple personalities- the existence of two or more distinctpersonalities or personality states within one person.
In actuality, upto ten or even more personalities can coexist within one person, somedocumented cases have revealed over one hundred. But, the questionremains, what exactly is the multiple personality disorder (MPD)? First Iwill look at what exactly the disorder is. It is, in simple terms, manycomplex personalities all inhabiting the same body. At any given time, oneof those personalities is in control of the body. Each one has differenttastes, style, thought process, and many other things that define a person. However, research has proven even more than that.
In clinical studies ithas been found that of the different personalities of one person, the eyeprescription, allergies, athletic ability, and even diabetes can exist inone of the personalities and not the others. The person can switch at anygiven time from one personality to another, often not realizing it. Thiscan account for memory loss and time loss in the primary personality, whooften does not have access to the memories of the other personalities. Acommon misconception among the general public is the confusion of MPD withthe disease of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics do NOT have distinctpersonalities, rather, they have hallucinations of voices outside theirheads.
Schizophrenia is caused by brain malfunctions and can be treatedwith drugs, whereas suffers of MPD cannot because MPD is an almost purelypsychological disorder. MPD seems to be caused mainly by incredibly violentand terrible childhood abuse. In fact, about 98% of MPD sufferers wereabused as children. The disorder also occurs between three to nine timesmore in women than men, the person being abused creates otherpersonalities to handle the pain. In the case of a man named Milligan, hisfather beat him and sexually abused him. Then he forced the boy to dig hisown grave, burying him alive with only a stove pipe to breath through.
Thenthe father urinated into the pipe onto the boy’s face. With that kind ofabuse, you either go crazy, die, or develop other personalities. That iswhy, in many people with MPD, there are agitated and distracted childpersonalities. These personalities were created in order to suffer thepain of abuse. When the abuse was over, their call was no longer neededand the primary personality could resume control, dropping with that secondpersonality all memory of the event and continuing as if nothing happened.
This type of personality exists in almost all MPD sufferers. Another commonpersonality is the Persecutor personality. This personality is created toabsorb the rage the person feels towards his abusers. It often lashes out,either at other people or at the other personalities, because it believessome of the punishment was their fault. To punish that personality it willoften harm the body of the person, not realizing it is hurting itself inthe process.
A final common personality is the Protector personality. Itis created to give a feeling of protection to the child personalities andto try to prevent the Persecutor from lashing out at others or itself. These are obviously not all the personalities, found, but they are the mostcommon. Due to all these conflicting interests the personalities oftenargue with each other.
This is why the person often hears voices “insidehis head” whereas the schizophrenic hears them from outside in the world. Many people dispute the existence of multiple personalities. They arguethat such an idea is impossible and that the people are simply making itup. However, I believe the opposite, and many people share my opinion dueto one study. Around 10 years ago a Dr.
Putnam conducted an experiment,whereby he hooked several MPD sufferers up to a machine that measures brainwaves. He then subjected each personality of each person to a set ofstimuli. Each personality reacted differently, the difference was aroundthe same as between two separate people. The control group of volunteersfaking the disorder could produce any difference, indicating to me thatsomething is very different about those states of mind, and they cannotsimply make up the changes in response to stimuli, nor can they fakediabetes and different physical requirements as I stated earlier asexamples in differences of personalities. To move on to treatment, there isvirtually no treatment a psychiatrist can offer other than extensivepsychotherapy and hypnosis.
In bringing out the suffering that caused thedevelopment of personalities, usually many personalities will “fuse” into amore complete whole, though some retain a few personalities. Some MPDsufferers would rather keep their personalities, they fear that the specialskills each one has might be lost if they are all fused into one bigpersonality. For one of the most complicated areas of this topic, I willnow discuss crimes. Crimes where a multiple personality is in any wayinvolved immediately become very complicated.
Who is at fault? Who istestifying when that person gets on the witness stand? Are they faking itto get an “innocent by insanity” judgment? It is an easy way out, to lieabout having MPD to get an innocent verdict, and that must be decided bythe jury in a trial. The real problem comes when the MPD person is theplaintiff or defendant. In one example, a woman with twenty or morepersonalities ended up sleeping with a man whom she knew. He claims one ofher personalities consented to have sex with him. While having sex, one ofher child personalities came out and she thought she was being raped,though she didn’t voice this until afterwards when she complained of beingraped. He does, however, admit to knowing about her disorder.
So who isat fault here? I would have to say it is not the man’s fault, sheconsented and therefore it was not a rape. However, others claim elsewise. They say that since he knew about her disorder he was takingadvantage of her. I cannot agree, for as long as she consented, he didn’tintentionally commit any crime and cannot be prosecuted for it, even if itwasn’t her main personality, it was still “her. ” The other type of caseinvolving multiple personalities is even more involved, that is where onepersonality commits the crime, to the others’ horror and surprise. In thiscase, is that person liable for the damage another personality caused? Inthe example of Juanita Maxwell she had a violent personality named Wandawho robbed two banks nine years after being acquitted on the insanitydefense for killing a seventy-three year old woman.
What do you do withthis person? Do you lock them up and throw away the key? Do you releasethem on grounds of insanity’seeing as she was acquitted for murder,apparently the legal system thinks they should be allowed to be treated. Iagree with this. However, many people disagree vehemently over thissubject. Many feel they have committed a crime and should be punished thesame as anyone else, and sometimes this happens.
However, it happens moreoften with men than women, who are usually steered towards the psychiatrictreatment route and are prosecuted less than men. Men offenders are viewedas brutal beasts, while women are seen as disturbed oftentimes, or at leastthat is how it seems to me. However, offenders with true MPD should not goto jail, where conditions might worsen the disorder due to more abuse andbad conditions. Also, in jail, there is almost no hope for diagnosis andhelp, so when they are released they will not be any better than when theywent in and will probably offend again.
So putting them in jail is hurtingsociety, not helping it by keeping them off the streets. However many aretoo paranoid to realize this, they just want to throw them where they won’tbe seen for a long time. These paranoiacs don’t look in the long term,just the immediate results. I feel they should go to therapy to help getrid of their problems.
Research has shown psychotherapy is the onlyeffective way to help MPD, and it doesn’t come in prison. If they go totherapy for 2 years and are cured it helps society more than if they arelocked out of sight for 20 years. So in cases where it can be proven it isa case of MPD I say send them to the psychiatric ward. All in all, multiplepersonalities are kind of an obscure subject. Not much research has beendone on them, though I think they have fascinating potential, both incuriosity and in the effects of mind control on the body as I discussedearlier, and they should be researched much more. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1990 RevisionThe Boston Globe, November 6, 1989The New York Times, April 17 1983Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1990 RevisionThe New York Times, April 17, 1983The New York Times, August 10, 1990St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct.10, 1990
