Dissociative Personality Disorder is a psychiatric condition which involves the sufferer experiencing multiple distinct personality states. The personality of the person becomes dissociated into two or more distinct personalities, each of which becomes dominant and controls the behavior from time to time. Each personality has its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the world. The dissociative personality disorder was formerly called multiple personality disorder or split personality. About 3% of patients of psychiatric hospitals have dissociative personality disorder, and it occurs in women nine times more often than in men.
There is no proven specific cause for dissociative personality disorder, but theoretically it is linked with overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents, insufficient childhood nurturing and childhood trauma. Most patients with this disorder complain of child abuse such as physical abuse or sexual abuse, especially during early to mild childhood. According to psychological theory, severe physical or sexual or psychological trauma in the childhood by a primary caregiver leads to development of dissociative personality disorder. When the child is traumatized by the primary caregiver, the memory and awareness of the event gets split in the child's mind to carry on the relationship. Those memories and feelings go into subconscious mind which will be experienced later in the form of other personality. In future, personality dissociation keeps recurring whenever traumatic event happens and the process becomes coping mechanism for the individual during stressful circumstances.
Patients diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder represent variety of signs and symptoms with wide fluctuations across time. The daily functioning and activities of the patient get impaired due to split personality. Dissociation is the main symptom of this condition where the patient experiences lapse in memory especially important life events such as birthdays or weddings. The patient experiences blackouts in time, the patient reaches/travels to place but fails to recall how he came there. Other symptoms include multiple mannerisms, attitude and beliefs which are not similar to each other, loss of subjective time, severe memory loss, derealization, depersonalization, panic attacks and unexplainable phobias. Patients feel that they are watching themselves move through life rather than living their own life. They are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, and there is a feeling of more than person. Hearing voices in their head which are not their own. There is no particular investigation or blood test to diagnose this disorder. Split personality is diagnosed on the basis of proper case history, signs and symptoms and mental-health interview
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