Overview
1. Barriers to correct diagnosis due to lack of knowledge about DID among mental health professionals
2. Fear or social isolation of people with DID can occur due to inaccurate media portrayal of disorder
3. Difficult work life due to symptom of alternating identities
4. Strained relationships with people due to symptom of alternating identities
1. Barriers to correct diagnosis due to lack of
knowledge about DID among mental health professionals
1. Barriers to correct diagnosis due to lack of
knowledge about DID among mental health professionals
Firstly, the misdiagnosing and underdiagnosing of dissociative identity disorder (DID) can contribute to implications for the person with DID.
DID is a disorder that is relatively misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed by professionals. There are many reasons for this including unfamiliarity with the diagnosis and the symptoms of DID, an underestimation of the epidemic of dissociative disorders and disbelief that the patient could be suffering from DID in the first place, particularly if amnesia or identity changes are related to criminal offenses (Coons, 2005).
In fact, according to Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute (2010), people with DID spend an average of seven years with an incorrect diagnosis and it is common for people with DID to be misdiagnosed as having bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and addictions to alcohol and drugs.
Hayes and Mitchell (1994) conducted studies to find out the nature of mental health professionals’ skepticism of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), now known as DID, results showed that the more skeptic professionals were, the less knowledge they had about DID and that extreme skeptics of the disorder were those who went to fewer conferences and read less books about DID as compared to less skeptical mental health professionals.
Due to the fact that the disorder is frequently misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed by professionals, it might lead to frustration or serious implications for the patient with DID especially if he or she had been taking the wrong medication for years due to an incorrect diagnosis.
This is a serious implication that can be prevented by educating professionals on DID (Hayes & Mitchell, 1994) as well as by encouraging people who suspect they suffer from DID to consult a variety of professionals so as to minimise their chance of getting an incorrect diagnosis.
2. Fear or social isolation of people with DID can occur due to inaccurate media portrayal of disorder
Secondly, another psychosocial implication on the person with DID is that they may be socially isolated or feared by members of society due to the media’s often negative portrayal of the disorder.
In the media, many movies revolving around the theme of multiple personalities have been made. Examples include “The Three Faces of Eve”, “Sybil” and movies about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Unfortunately, while the media could have provided a greater understanding towards the disorder through true-to-life portrayals of the condition, the industry went in the opposite direction and have often portrayed an incomplete, dramatised understanding of the condition.
This might be because in movies, the character's symptom of alternating identities overshadows the other symptoms of the disorder, causing movie viewers to view DID in a stereotypical way; as a disorder characterised solely by the presence of many identities (Poseck, 2006).
In this example, we see a movie of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the start of the clip, Dr Jekyll acts "normally" but keeps talking about how as Mr. Hyde, he would kill someone. After his transformation to Mr. Hyde, he becomes more violent. This seems to convey the notion that people with more than one identity are murderous and unstable.
In this example, we see how a person with DID is portrayed as extremely unstable around others and their own self due to their different identities and traumatic memories.
Poseck (2006) also went on to address that characters with DID in movies often have violent, murderous tendencies which is not the case as in real life, few documented cases link crime or murder to DID.
Therefore, as movies do not give one an accurate understanding of the condition and because these movies are watched by the general public, it might lead to the public’s misunderstanding of the disorder. Also, as the media often portrays people with DID or people with alternating identities in a negative light, the disorder itself has a bad reputation which may lead to social isolation or fear towards people with DID.
3. Difficult work life due to symptom of
alternating identities
Work life can also be affected for the person with DID because of their different and alternating identities.
For example, Mitchison (2011) wrote an article about Kim Noble, a woman with a troubled childhood. Noble had held down a steady job as a van driver for five years when all of a sudden, an identity called Julie appeared while she was driving, causing her to ram into a line of parked cars. Noble was diagnosed with DID.
In another example, Morris (2012) wrote about her experiences as someone who has lived with the disorder for 15 years. She commented that she had been a social worker in the past but one of her child identities was unable to handle the work environment and would often hide under the desk in fear.
From the above case studies, it is evident that the symptom of alternating identities can be a hassle to the person with DID when they are working. In some cases, this symptom can even endanger the life of the person with DID.
To manage this problem, ATW (2005) stated that the person with DID should "assign" a few identities who can cope well in the work environment to come out during working hours. At the same time, the person with DID should make agreements with the other identities that do not cope well in the work environment so that they would not appear during working hours. Through these agreements with their identities, the person with DID can have a better work life.
4. Strained relationships with people due to
symptom of alternating identities
Due to the fact that a person with DID often alternates between his identities, his or her friends, family and/ or significant other may find interactions with them scary or unpredictable, which can be wearisome and lead to strained relationships.
Caregivers of the person with DID can also find it emotionally difficult to balance between caring for the person with DID and finding time for their own interests especially since a person with DID has needs that change frequently, causing their caregivers to ignore their own problems for the sake of the person they care for (ATW, 2005).
After a while, the pushing aside of one’s own needs can lead to tiredness and strained relationships between the people with DID and their caregivers/ friends/ family/ significant others.
Coons, P.M. (2005). THE DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS : Rarely Considered and Underdiagnosed. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 21(3), 637-648.
Hayes, J.A., & Mitchell, J. C. (1994). Mental health professionals' skepticism about multiple
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10.1037/0735-7028.25.4.410
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Mitchison, A. (2011, September 30). Kim Noble: The woman with 100 personalities. Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/30/kim-noble-woman-with-100-personalities
Morris, K. (2012). Holding Down A Job When You Have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/holding-down-job-dissociative-identity-11000986.html?cat=5
Poseck, B.V. (2006). I was the murderer! Or the Dissociative Identity Disorder in the cinema.
Journal of Medicine and Movies, 2(4).
Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute. (2010). What Is A Dissociative Disorder? Retrieved from http://www.sidran.org/sub.cfm?contentID=75§ionid=4
Strained relationships picture [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.shiftlifestyle.com/femininewaytowealth
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(2005). Got Parts? [Google Books version]. Retrieved from
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