Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder
Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is a re-occurring emotional illness, in which a person contains two or more personalities. Each personality has its own view, emotions and understanding of the world. An MPD patient is controlled by different individuals at different times.
Although true causes are unknown, most Multiple Personality Disorder patients suffered some emotional trauma in their childhood. Advameg (2008) states that “many times when a young child is severely abused, he or she becomes so detached from reality that what is happening may seem more like a movie or television show than real life.”
Case Study (Gupta and Kumar, 2005)
In Gupta and Kumar (2005) case study from North India, a 14 year old girl was found suffering from having two personalities. From time to time she would become male like and call herself as Mr. S, she was not able to recognise her neighbours, relatives, teachers and she was not able to recount her personal memories as well.
Investigation showed her child life had no trauma and it was uneventful. However 2 years before she begun to have the symptoms of MPD her father and sister left her; since, there was no communication. The girl was very close to her sister and was described as she could not imagine living a day without her. After separation she was found occupied with sadness, worry, lost of interest and reduce of energy. Over the last one year, she had many occasions of “fainting, episodes with twisting of both extremities with no loss of consciousness, major injury, and tongue bites” However over time her illness had developed into the official Multiple Personality Disorder, Mr. S.
Even though MPD is caused by childhood trauma, would every person who has childhood trauma develop MPD?
Are there Natural factors involved?
Bibliography
Advameg Inc. (2008) Multiple personality disorder (Internet) Available from: http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ma-Mu/Multiple-Personality-Disorder.html (accessed date: 21.10)
Gupta and Kumar (2005) Multiple Personality Disorder -A Case Report From Northern India (Internet) Available from: http://www.gjpsy.uni-goettingen.de/gjp-article-gupta-a-multiple.pdf (accessed dates: 21.10, 23.10)
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11 comments:
The case study of the 14 year old girl is interesting, especially since it says her childhood was uneventful EXCEPT FOR her sister, whom she was very close to, and her father leaving her. Sounds uneventful indeed.
I would say that she developed the MPD due to the trauma, especially since it says she developed psychological and self-harm problems such as fainting and tongue bites. While I'm no psychologist, I would hazard a guess that pretending to be someone else helped her escape from her emotional pain for short periods of time, to the point where she did it so often that "Mr. S" actually became a separate and wholly individual person in her mind.
I don't think everyone who experiences childhood trauma would develop MPD, as it may just be the way that a select few people cope with trauma, or it may be due to some different factor entirely. I would also add that it is possible that there are possibly a *few* natural factors *shudder*, such as a genetic predisposition towards it as with most other psychological disorders.
Cameron
10H
With the info presented, MPD sounds to only effect those that have suffered childhood trauma, but wouldn't it also effect adults who have gone through trauma. This isn't very clear.
What is stated, however, says that it is to do with nurture, rather than nature, and this is shown by the use of the case study, the 14 year old indian girl.
Ben
10R
no i dont think that every child who suffers a trama would devcelop MPD. this is because a trama may not effect some peoples life than others, people deal with things in different ways maeaning that not everyone wil develop MPD.
if, however, a child suffering from MPD had been caused due to trama, then i would say that this is mainly related to nuture. you do not pop up with a trama from birth, some cause must have been present.
Ashleigh and Mardie
I don’t think that every child who has a trauma will turn out to have MPD. Every person deals with such traumas in different ways. I think that the way that you deal with the trauma is what may cause MPD. If a child is abused they may try very hard to forget the memory and may go about life in a totally different way and in result they may gain a totally different personality. Other children who deal with the situation differently may not develop MPD.
Elspeth 10 M
I've made a similar comment in another topic, which is that I believe that a person's natural disposition will influence how they react to their childhood experiences, so some children may react and interact with their environment, or perhaps fight back, wheras some children may retreat and keep to themselves in the face of adversity, like this child who later developed MPD.
While I have no further case studies to support my argument, based on the one given in this topic I believe that there are natural factors involved in MPD which suggests that no, not all people with childhood trauma will develop MPD.
Well, i don't think that every person that had childhood trauma would develop MPD. I think it depends on how they respond to the trauma; if they chose to isolate themself then perhaps they would develop MPD, if they chose to surround themself with freinds and talk through the trauma they might not develop MPD.
Also if their response to the trauma is affected by nature, eg. personality, reactions to certain things, then they might develop MPD.
Well there is no information in this blog about any history of MPD in families. If this arguement was tranlsated to the arguement about whether everything that happens in our lives are predetermined or all voluntary. the predetermined outlook would support Nature and natural Factors in that the trauma would be predetermined.
Also if their response to the trauma is affected by nature, eg. personality, reactions to certain things, then they might develop
However according to the information in this blog there aren't any other causes for MPD then childhood trauma.
Heidi 10f
Maddie and I both believe that MPD is mainly caused by people who want to supressed their childhood traumas (Nurture)
However, want we want to know - is there any evidence of people that have MPD after serious brain trauma?
Beth and Maddie
Cameron has brought up the interesting issue of what defines childhood ages?
According to Piaget's developmental stages, by the age of 11 children have already reached the formal operational stage, meaning their brain is mostly - fully developed. Therefore, it constitutes as an almost adolescent stage.
Cameron has, however, raised many valid points, such as his views on escapism.
It is important to define which factors of this argument are nature, and which are nurture. Natural factors, as mentioned by Cameron, would be the genetic predisposition to such a psychological behaviour. The factors of nurture could be the abuse (defined as a significant trauma/s in your life) faced by the MPD sufferer.
Bringing in a different example, that of alcohol or drug abuse, this is similar to this debate. If your family has a history of alcoholocism or drug abuse, you are more likely to develop such a problem yourself. This does not mean that you -will- develop the problem, but that you are -likely- to. Perhaps, this is similar to an MPD patient. As their natural factors could influence whether they will develop MPD.
Rohit AND Elisheba.
I will say not every person with childhood trauma will develop MPD because people treat their problems differently. Due to NURTURE they may see the counsellor or they have parents and friends to support them so they don't develop MPD. HOWEVER say two people both had similar childhood trauma and btoh had no support from either family or friends, the one with susceptible brain' or weaker personality will more likely to develop to have MPD. Therefore I believe that it also depends on the way the person was born- they mental ability.
However I believe that the development of the MPD is most likely to be on the nuture side as stated by Rebecca J. Frey 2006, "MPD may be a relatively recent development in western society. It may be a culture-specific syndrome found in western society, caused primarily by both childhood abuse and unspecified long-term societal changes." Therefore this shows that due to the cultural changes (childhood abuse) the human brain cannot cope with the it, therefore it develop to be another person to get away from the reality. THus MPD is mostly caused by nurture.
Flora Liu 10R
Hold up, I have been researching MPD on the internet, and many researchers are suggesting that MPD is not an actual condition, but a the product of suggestion on a vulnerable mind. I'm I'm becomeing more and more convinced that MPD is a type of post traumatic stress, particuloarly considering that the syptoms include - "Memory lapses, frequent bouts of amnesia or ‘lost time’." Which could simply be a way for an abused child to distance themselves from traumatic experiences (Kind of like sexual abuse victims with repressed memories.) And physical symptoms such as; "headaches, abdominal pain, a sensation of choking, and pain in the [genetalia]" Pain in the genetalia could be explained if the child had a history of sexual abuse. Other symptoms include - "sleep difficulties, mood swings, depression, suicidal tendencies and self-mutilation and
Flashbacks to traumatic events." All these symptoms are common in post-traumatic stress patients.
In conclusion, I believe that MPD does not exist as an actual disease - instead it is the product of post-traumatic stress, and a vulnerable patient who is told they have MPD or has contact with somepeople with MPD and so continue to play the part. It must be noted that treatment which pays attention to the alternate personalities and the situating of MPD Patients close together in a hospital of "prolongs the condition". I believe because of this research (available on: http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Dissociative_identity_disorder?OpenDocument) that MPD (or the apparent symptoms of it) is purely nurture and has no basis in genetic predisposition.
Jess
Childhood trauma would be a horrible thing to experience. MPD may not be developed by evryone who has a childhood truama, becuase they may be genetically resisant. Or their truama may not be tramatic enough. Or they simply may not remember it. However people who suffer from childhood truama must be more suspetable to MPD.
Alina 10M
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