Multiple Personalities Disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder WHAT IS

Multiple Personalities Disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder

WHAT IS DISSOCIATION? Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder? Symptoms: - Displaying 2 or more personalities - Anxiety disorders - Schizophrenic and mood psychoses - Depression - Manifestations of anxiety (sweating, rapid pulse, palpitations) - Phobias - Sexual dysfunction

Etiology Biological Perspective: Poisoning: In history, personality could be altered by poisoning. Chemicals such as mercury that were used to paste hats, could seep through the pores and affect the brain. Brain Disease: Strokes can have a major effect on personality, it can mellow out someone or it can do the opposite. Learning Perspective: Conditioning: The learning perspective states that conditioning throughout a person’s life is what causes disorders in personality. If someone is taught to be good at sports or more outgoing than s/he really are, then other aspects of their personality could come to life as a multiple personality disorder. Cognitive Perspective: Multiple Intelligences: Howard Gardner theorizes that every human has seven different ways of knowing. This influences multiple personalities disorder since the different ways of knowing can create different approaches to life that cannot be fused into one personality.

Treatments: Biological Perspective: Drugs are the solution according to the biological perspective. Since this disorder is seen as a result of some chemical imbalance or defective genes, biological psychologists believe that chemicals can help improvement of this disorder. Learning Perspective: According to the learning perspective, personality is formed by conditioning. Multiple personalities can be cured by conditioning the person to act one way and have one personality. Systematic desensitization would work in some cases, but really the most effective method is to teach the person to act a certain way. If they have been pressured to be different throughout their lives, a psychologist could make the person learn that they should be the way they are. Cognitive Perspective: DID is supposed to be caused by a person’s perception and cognition of the world that surrounds him/her. Usually the disorder is caused by one’s efficacy and desire to be better. Multiple personalities are induced by low self esteem and a person’s desire to be different, for example a conservative person could have a wild, outgoing persona. In order to treat the disorder, cognitive psychologists believe that self efficacy can help, by showing a person that others can feel good with the way they are, the person might learn to appreciate him/herself.