404 Chapter 11 Psychological Disorders
that supposedly causes traumatized children to
repress their ordeal and develop several identities
as a result, lacks historical and empirical support
(Huntjens, Verschuere, & McNally, 2012; Lynn
et al., 2012; see Chapter 8). Truly traumatic expe-
riences are remembered all too long and all too
well (McNally, 2003).
So what is this disorder? The evidence sug-
gests that it is a homegrown cultural syndrome
(Pope et al., 2007). Only a handful of MPD
cases had ever been diagnosed anywhere in
the world before 1980, when it first officially
appeared in the third edition of the DSM; yet
by the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of cases
had been reported, mostly in the United States
and Canada. MPD became a lucrative business,
benefiting hospitals that opened MPD clinics,
therapists who had a new disorder to treat,
and psychiatrists and patients who wrote best-
selling books. Then, in the 1990s, as a result of
numerous malpractice cases across the country,
courts ruled, on the basis of the testimony of
scientific experts in psychiatry and psychology,
that MPD was being generated by the clinicians
who believed in it. The MPD clinics in hospi-
tals closed, psychiatrists became more wary, and
the number of cases dropped sharply almost
overnight. But the promoters of the diagnosis
have never admitted they were mistaken. TheyYou are about to learn...
• why most clinicians and researchers are
skeptical about multiple personality disorder.
• why the number of “multiple personality” cases
jumped from a handful to many thousands.Dissociative Identity
Disorder LO 11.17
One of the most controversial diagnoses ever to
arise in psychiatry and psychology is dissociative
identity disorder (DiD), formerly and still popularly
called multiple personality disorder (MPD). This
label describes the apparent emergence, within
one person, of two or more distinct identities,
each with its own name, memories, and personal-
ity traits. Cases of multiple personality portrayed
on TV, in books, and in films such as The Three
Faces of Eve and Sybil have captivated the public
for years.
Some psychiatrists and clinical psychologists
take DID very seriously, believing that it origi-
nates in childhood as a means of coping with sex-
ual abuse or other traumatic experiences (Gleaves,
1996). In their view, the trauma produces a mental
“splitting” (dissociation): One personality handles
everyday experiences, and another personality
(called an “alter”) emerges to cope with the bad
ones. During the 1980s and 1990s, clinicians
who believed a client had multiple personalities
often used suggestive techniques such as hypno-
sis, drugs, and even outright coercion to “bring
out the alters” (McHugh, 2008; Rieber, 2006;
Spanos, 1996). Psychiatrist Richard Kluft (1987)
wrote that efforts to determine the presence of
alters may require “between 2 1/2 and 4 hours of
continuous interviewing. Interviewees must be
prevented from taking breaks to regain compo-
sure.... In one recent case of singular difficulty,
the first sign of dissociation was noted in the 6th
hour, and a definitive spontaneous switching of
personalities occurred in the 8th hour.”
Mercy! After eight hours of “continuous
interviewing” without a single break, how many
of us wouldn’t do what the interviewer wanted?
Clinicians who conducted such interrogations
argued that they were merely permitting other
personalities to reveal themselves, but psycho-
logical scientists countered that they were actively
creating other personalities through suggestion
and sometimes even intimidation with vulner-
able clients who had other psychological prob-
lems (Lilienfeld & Lohr, 2003). Researchers have
shown that “dissociative amnesia,” the mechanismdissociative identity
disorder A controversial
disorder marked by the
apparent appearance
within one person of two
or more distinct person-
alities, each with its own
name and traits; formerly
known as multiple per-
sonality disorder (MPD).
In the earliest cases, multiple personalities came only in
pairs. In the 1886 story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the
kindly Dr. Jekyll turned into the murderous Mr. Hyde.
But at the height of the MPD epidemic in the 1990s,
people were claiming to have dozens of alters, including
demons, aliens, and animals.