Personality is defined as the total sum of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual. Identity is defined as the state or character of being the same one. Multiple Personality Disorder, now referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder, identifies a condition where a person's personality (or identity) has become fragmented, no longer integrated as the "same one." Personality and the identity of a single person has to deal with the nature of Dissociative Identity Disorder, this changes the, well obviously, the way a person's personality or identity is pictured because they have different ones. .
Multiple Personality Disorder can be caused by numerous factors, but one conclusion that I have made would be the fact that it's not a disease, exactly. This is a defense mechanism, most scientists have found that it the personalities usually "split" before the age of 6. Children use this as a survival technique, causing them to go into a hiding, escaping from whatever they are wanting to get away from. It is usually triggered by psychological trauma, such as chronic physical abuse or sexual abuse, also this can be influenced by other relatives with dissociative symptoms or disorders. This is usually common in females, in fact around 90% of them are female, although some believe males aren't commonly known of this because they are in prison for violent acts they have committed. It's not a very common problem among the population, the studies performed have estimated it's 1 per 10,000, still 50% of most psychiatrists deny that it even exists. .
Treatment for a patient with Dissociative Identity Disorder may last for five to seven years in adults and may require several different methods, there are 3 different methods that are available. The first one I will be talking about is Psychotherapy, which has several different stages: an initial phase for uncovering and "mapping" the patient's alters (Alters is simply a reference to an alternate or secondary personality in a patient with D.
