Multiple Personality Disorder in the movie “Identity”

“Jesus Christ, what in the fuck did you do to my face? Where the fuck is my face” (Identity) the main actor in the movie Identity by Columbia Pictures presenting a Konrad Pictures production a film by James Mangold. and shows his discomfort and his misunderstanding of what is going in his life when he is face to face with many lawyers and a judge; along with the Doctors trying to convince them that this man is not the killer of the people, but instead that was just one of his identities that should no longer exist. Unknowingly, the Edward (the main actor) is having a had time understanding why when he looks into a mirror he doesn’t see his face but instead he sees the face of the murdered.

He soon comes to realized that he is that just a of many of this mans identities. The term Dissociative Identity Disorder is being used rather than the more well known term, Multiple Personality Disorder because it was said to a misleading term. This disorder is nothing to be over looked as a mere problem in the brain; instead, it is a very complex problem that is not easily treated. To have a complete understand of Dissocialiative Identity Disorder, and to understand the steps to getting this disorder; moreover, the treatments, are all the main concepts that should be fully understood.

To understand DID to it’s fullest, one must look at all the different aspects. The definition of Dissociative Identity Disorder is defined as “a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, acions, or sens of identity” (www.sidran.org). For a well rounded understanding, some of the symptoms of DID are as followed: depression, mood swing, suicidal tendencies, sleep disorders, panic attacks and phobias, alcool and drug abuse, compulsions and rituals, psycotic-like symptoms, headaches, amnesisas, time loss, trances, “out of body experiences,” self-persecution, self-sabotage, and even violence toward others and themselves. It is not to say that if you have any of these symptoms that you automatically have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but if you did have maybe a few of them, you should maybe start contemplating getting checked into a mental institute to be checked out. The fact is that on an average, it takes about seven years for a patient to be properly diagnosed with DID because they are misdiagnosed for so long and just thrown around from psychiatrist to psychiatrist.

For the majority of the people that do end up having DID, they are the ones that had a history of large problems whether they were emotionally or phsically usually before the age of nine; before the age of nine because their brains are still very underdeveloped and still much mor evulnerable to their environment. A few statistics of who is affected and who is not affected is that “Current research shows that DID may affect 1% of the general population and perhaps as many as 5-20% of people in psychiatric hospitals, many of whom have received other diagnoses” (www.sidran.org). That is just one of many statistics of who is affected by DID, and who are lucky enough to not have to deal with it. For the last few years, it has always been said that women have been more prone to getting DID, but new research has uncovered that men are just as prone to get DID as women. The majority of men that do get DID are already in for abuse of alcohol or drugs or abusing something. The steps to such a disorder is better described by Dr. Piper and Dr. Merskey.

Dr. Piper and Dr. Merskey help to define the trigger of dissociative identity disorder as a “personal defensive response” of a childhood trauma, usually involving a sexual or physical encounter. Statistics show that “60% to 75% of DID patients have been physically abused, 68% to 83% sexually abused, and 89% to 97% either physically or sexually abused in childhood” (Piper and Merskey 593). It is also stated that the main cause of DID comes from childhood traumas. These traumas could include but are not limited to physical or sexual abuse from parents or authoritative persons. The main Doctor on Identity simplifies the whole process as “When faced with an intense trauma a child’s mind my fracutre creating dissociated identites” (Identity). Many DID patients have received these forms of abuse up to twice a week for 50 months out of the year (Piper and Merskey 593). The trauma of a young person’s life will lead to the next phase of forming DID which is repression.

Through repression, these children will hide their traumatizing events and will become amnesic for them. They set them into a separate part of there mind as hopes to forget and eliminate these memories from existence. Since it is not possible for one to eliminate such memories from their heads, they repress them. They are able to accomplish this to a large extent. People under DID have a tendency to continue to repress any emotional experiences. These negative experiences all build up and separated from a child’s mental life and forms separate personalities. DID and MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) are commonly diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia because these people tend to have a loss of connection within the brain which can cause hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking. Multiple personalities can function completely separate of each other. In other words, one of a person’s personality will have no recollection of the others doing (Bob 141). Thus, the severity and the frequency of traumas to a child will have great impact on the depth of DID that a person will suffer.

Once a person has began the effects of “splitting” personalities they are set into categories of personality states Dr. Bob. A person has two primary personalities’ birth and host. Ones birth personality is the one that develops individuals’ personality, and the host personality is responsible for the personality that controls an individual. Any other personalities are called secondary personalities. The secondary personalities are the ones that are triggered by the traumatic events. They are the creations of either split birth personalities and they can control a person’s host personality. Thus a person may act, walk, and talk in a ways that are completely different from one moment to another. There is hope because it is possible to treat such a disorder.

A person suffering from DID can have many personalities, even as many as thousands. Those suffering from DID/MPD “report a history of childhood physical and emotional abuse; had recurrent thoughts of death, suicide and the desire to be dead; amnesiac episodes prior to treatment; and had at least experienced previous outpatient mental health, as well as previous psychiatric hospitalization” (journal). There are many types of therapy for patients with DID and most, according to John Grohl of Psych Central states that there are three types of therapies: psychotherapy, medications and self help (psychcentral.com). Psychotherapy is an individual treatment where the DID diagnosed learns to combine all of their various personalities into one unified personality. Another option is medication. The person with DID is carefully monitored and is only used for acute and specific cases of the disorder. Self help is self explanatory; the sufferers come together in a support group fashion and discuss their numerous dealings with the disorder (psychcentral.com). One may agree with Grohl and believe that the extent of treatment are those three options; however, John Miller MD believes that there are many more options to ease the frustrations of DID.

Miller’s main focus is hypnosis in addition to psychotherapy. Hypnosis is often used in the treatment of dissociative fugue. “Hypnosis can help the client/patient recall his/her true identity and remember the events of the past. Psychotherapy is helpful for the person who has traumatic, past events to resolve” (dissociative disorders). He believes that the combination of the two will help to combat the many outbreaks of the personalities. He suggests psychotherapy in addition to the hypnosis for the purpose of combination of the personalities into one “complete” person. The disclaimer however is that if the patient’s behavior becomes too severe to handle, or even destructive to the parties involved the patient must be hospitalized. “…long-term psychotherapy that helps the person merge his/her multiple personalities into one. The trauma of the past has to be explored and resolved with proper emotional expression. Hospitalization may be required if behavior becomes bizarre or destructive” (dissociative disorders). The main doctor in “Identity” explains this in his own words to Malcolm himself by stating “… Malcolm is in the mitts of a medical treament. One which forces all of his identities to confront one

and other for the first time. I knew there would be violence; and with that, the numer of identities would be reduced” (Identity). Dr. Miller is kind enough to offer some hope-a light at the end of the tunnel if you will-to anyone suffering from DID. He states, “Treatment for depersonalization disorder is very difficult. However, the condition can improve with a thorough therapeutic exploration of the trauma in the individual’s past and the expression of the emotions associated with that trauma” (dissociative disorders). A doctor such as this is hard to find and it seems as though any patient would be very lucky to be treated by one such as this.

According to those at The Journal of Neurotherapy, they state that there is a danger for the clinicians in treating patients with the disorder: “Treatment approaches for Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID; formally designated as Multiple Personality Disorder] tend to focus on just one aspect of therapy (e.g. neurochemical, spiritual or psychological), with little regard for the psychobiological significance of trance states and their neuro-adaptive significance. Clinicians often become so fascinated with the psychodynamic defense constructs of mind (personalities) that they fail to adequately address the co-morbid personality (Smith,1991) or the neurologic phenomenon underlying trance, hypnotizibility and dissociative states (Putnam, 1984).

Some speculate that DID may be a form of hypnosis used by constitutionally vulnerable individuals to cope with extraordinary trauma (Putnam, 1984; Speigel and Bliss, 1985; Stutman and Bliss, 1985). Others suggest that traumatized individuals in response to survival pressures revert to “old brain” survival mechanisms (MacLean and Papez, 1981)” (Journal); the danger exists that the clinician could place too much focus on only one aspect of the person’s therapy and lose many other important aspects. The clinicians who conducted the study used neurofeedback testing to see the various levels at which the brain preformed while switching between the personalities (journal).

Though curing such a disorder as DID may be longterm, intensive, and very painfully both phsically and mentally; it is still very possible to cure such disorder. Referring back to the main doctor, in the movie, when he explains to the judge that “There is no universal treatment for dissocialized identity disorder. In theory, one must attempt to move the patients towards integration” (Identity). That is pretty much the clear ut answer to the problem of treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Currently, there are many experiments being conducted in search of the next treatment for the poor souls suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Within the upcoming years those new treatments will be revealed to the world of psychology and will aid in the help the many sufferers of DID.

The full understanding of DID, the steps to become a DID, and the treatments should form a good overview of the Dissociative Identity Disorder. Though this disorder is very complex and sometime unexplainable difficult to treat, it is something that is curable and is possible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The movie shows that real life examples of DID as Edward was forced to have all his identities confront one another and try to get rid of the bad one that committed all the horrible murders. Dissociative Identity Disorder, once again, is something that should not be simplified as just a head problem that is nothing more than just ahead headache. Instead the disorder needs to be dissected and broken down in to a manageable problem that can be taken on by a specialist. To do anything other than to try and treat it would do nothing but make things worse for the person suffering from the disorder and the people around them. The question still stands when dealing with a DID that committed a crime; “Do you prosecute the mind or the body.”