Invitation to Psychology

Chapter 11 Psychological Disorders 405

in which a patient had not been influenced by the

therapist’s suggestions or by reports about the

disorder in the media.

Even the famous case of “Sybil,” a huge hit

as a book and television special, was a hoax. Sybil

never had a traumatic childhood of sexual abuse,

she did not have multiple personality disorder,

and her “symptoms” were generated by pres-

sure from her psychiatrist, Cornelia Wilbur, who

injected her with heavy-duty drugs to get her

to reveal other “personalities” (Borch-Jacobson,

2009; Nathan, 2011). Despite this pressure, even

after several years Sybil failed to recall a traumatic

childhood memory and was not producing many

alters. Finally, she wrote to Wilbur, admitting

she was “none of the things I have pretended to

be.... I do not have any multiple personalities.... I

do not even have a ‘double.’... I am all of them.

I have been essentially lying.” Wilbur replied that

Sybil was merely experiencing massive denial and

resistance, and threatened to withhold the drugs

that Sybil had become addicted to. Sybil contin-

ued with therapy, and the two eventually produced

the book that Wilbur hoped would make her

famous and wealthy. It did.

The story of MPD/DID offers a good lesson

in critical thinking because it teaches us to be

cautious about new diagnoses and previously

rare disorders that suddenly catch fire in popular

culture: to consider other explanations, exam-

ine assumptions and biases, and demand good

evidence instead of simply accepting unskeptical

media coverage.

continue to treat patients for it, and it remains in
the DSM-5 as dissociative identity disorder.
No one disputes that some troubled, highly
imaginative individuals can produce many
different “personalities” when asked. But the
sociocognitive explanation of DID holds that this
phenomenon is simply an extreme form of the
ability we all have to present different aspects of
our personalities to others (Lilienfeld et al., 1999;
Lynn et al., 2012). The disorder may seem very
real to clinicians and
their patients who
believe in it, but in
the sociocognitive
view, it results from
pressure and sugges-
tion by clinicians,
together with accep-
tance by vulnerable
patients who find
the idea that they have separate personalities a
plausible explanation for their problems. The
diagnosis allows patients to account for past
sexual or criminal behavior that they now regret
or find intolerably embarrassing; they can claim
their “other personality did it.” In turn, thera-
pists who believe in the disorder reward their
patients with attention and praise for revealing
more and more personalities—and a culture-
bound syndrome is born (Hacking, 1995; Piper
& Merskey, 2004). When Canadian psychiatrist
Harold Merskey (1992) reviewed the published
cases of MPD, he was unable to find a single one

Recite & Review

Recite: Tell what you know about dissociative identity disorder, and the rise and fall of reports on

“multiple personalities.”

Review: Next, reread this section.

Now, any one of your personalities may answer this Quick Quiz:

A woman named Donna Walker was arrested for trying to convince an Indiana couple that she

was their long-missing daughter. She claimed that her “bad girl” personality (Allison) was respon-

sible for this deception and also for her long history of perpetrating hoaxes on police, friends, and

the media. Her “good girl” personality (Donna), she said, was a victim of childhood sexual abuse

who spent years working as an FBI informant. The FBI verified that Walker had worked for them,

although some of her reports were fabricated. One agent said that Walker has as many as seven

personalities who come and go. As a critical thinker, what questions would you want to ask about

Walker and her multiple-personality defense?

Answer:

Study and Review at MyPsychLab

Some possible questions to ask: Is there corroborating evidence for Walker’s claims? (She said she was sexually abused

from ages 4 to 13 by a family member and then by the minister of her church, and that she was sent to a psychiatric hospital

at age 13; these claims could be checked.) How much of the rest of her life story can be independently corroborated? Did

Walker claim to have other personalities only when she was in a jam with the law, or was there evidence of MPD throughout

her life? Could she have another mental disorder, such as antisocial personality disorder or major depression?

About the Origins of

Multiple Personality

Disorder

Thinking

CriTiCally