Split Personality?

[Dinesh_college]

Recently I saw a film.In that the hero will behave in three manners in different situations.The Doctor explained it as Split personality.

What is actually Split personality?

:hihi: What is the cause of Split personality?

[Pret]

Dual personality anime and manga characters come in many different forms, but as with many things, the cause of such forms is what ultimately is the most insightful into seeing why they act the way they do. Motivations, conflicts, and responses to what is sometimes just normal stimuli to other characters are more clearly seen when examining the cause of such things.

One cause of the dual nature of these characters is one that we are more familiar with in the real world. A dual or multiple personality can come about because of natural happenings or responses to the world around the character. Whether it be through a past event, a dark past with a different mindset, an object that brings back suppressed (and unwanted) desires, or something else, characters who have taken on more than one personality tend to do so because it is a "safe" response to those circumstances. The psychological trauma of events that may have happened to them or were supposed to shape them into one identity instead elicits a reaction of retaining or creating two or more personalities. In some cases, the character themselves was responsible for creating the trauma, and in order to deal with it, they create and most times suppress another personality within them. The transition between such personalities can either be subtle and slow, or quick.

 

The other major cause for a duality of personalities in anime characters stems from unnatural, or mythical causes. In most of these cases, the other personality is either forced or placed into their mind by outside circumstances. While it is artificial that for some of these characters that they are given another side of themselves, their other personalities still tend to cause just as much confusion and trauma as those that come into it naturally. Unlike natural duality, unnatural dual personality characters stand a somewhat better chance of being "cured" simply because of the fact that the cause of such duality is, for the most part, tangible, and removal results in an almost instant remedy. However, their personality shifts tend to come sudden and quick, and the fact that outside devices are the main factor in creating them make these characters more "efficient" in switching between personalities. This can make a remedy more difficult.

 

Whatever the cause, dual personality characters are a curious study and it is interesting to see how they relate to the story that is being written or told to the viewers or readers. Some may even focus on the duality of the character in question. Let's now pull out some specific examples and do a "case study" of some of the more prominent anime characters who experience this kind of personality.

Natural dual personalities are interesting studies in part becuase the depth of their duality usually goes back years and is usually fairly complex. Let's take a look at a couple of case studies to better understand the nature of this form of dual personality (NOTE: spoilers may follow, though I will try my best to talk in general terms). :hihi:

[GAHD]

As nice as it is to relate it to anime, there are real wold variations of the psychosis. As far as I know the most common variaty is Schitzophrenia; seeing things that arn't there, hearing voices in your head. Multiple personality Disorder is a deeper trauma than that, where there may actually be two (OR MORE!) personalities living in and controlling one body. I've heard of cases where the personalities don't know of each other, where one knows of the other, or where they both know of and can talk to each other. The trigger seems to be trauma, sometimes repressed memories that bundle together and form a personality to deal with stressful situations(ala Me, Myself and Irene), sometimes it's physical trauma to the brain itself( for movies I'd say Two-face is a prime example), and sometimes it's just stress (Fight Club).

I had previously thought trauma to the nervs connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain could cause such a disorder, but I found that a tretement for severe epilepsy was to actually cut these fibers and bifurcate the brain! The results showed that the people's personalities remained the same (Tangent: I beleive they had difficulties reading with one eye and recognising faces with the other ater the operation.) so trauma to this area doesn't seem to incite MPD. I can't say I remember much about which areas of the brain cause MPD when damaged, but I do remember reading a few studies about it.

 

I'm hoping we have others who have a fresher memory of these things than me here. I can't be of too much help at the moment.

[UncleAl]

Mental illness is caused by wealth, comfort, and leisure. New Orleans was utterly destroyed. More than 300,000 of the lowest class were smashed into flooded streets and abandoned to die by their government. 10,000 of them were herded into the Superdome, huddled amidst growing tons of fresh human excrement as the roof poured water, the temperature and humidity rose, and they died.

 

Was anybody depressed? No, not a one. There is not a shred of evidence that anybody acted in any way other than sustained functional shining sanity. They won't start whining until the Liberals arrive. Then it will be wall-to-wall "chronic post-affective traumatic stress syndrome" for the rest of their freeloading lives. VICTIMS! "GIMME!"

 

Uncle Al says, "Mankind evolved because there was no Welfare office."

[Fishteacher73]

Recently I saw a film.In that the hero will behave in three manners in different situations.The Doctor explained it as Split personality.

What is actually Split personality?

:hihi: What is the cause of Split personality?

Many folks also act in acording to their surorundings..When in Rome...etc. Some do it for ease of function and anomynity, others do it for acceptance, others just for the expreience....

[CraigD]

Recently I saw a film.In that the hero will behave in three manners in different situations.The Doctor explained it as Split personality.

What is actually Split personality?

:hihi: What is the cause of Split personality?

I’m not a Psychiatrist, or even an MD, but I have a lot of experience with diagnostic coding systems, so on this subject I’m arguably an expert.

 

First, avoid a common misunderstanding of psychiatric terms: While the term “schizophrenia” comes directly from the Greek “schizo”=split and “phrenos”=mind, it refers not to a mind split into many separate personalities, but a mind that has become separated from the normal perception of reality. “Split personality” is not another term for schizophrenia.

 

A very small number of people suffer from a disorder most recently known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, and, before that, “split personality”. How many people actually suffer from DID is the subject of much controversy. There’s broad consensus that the diagnosis is much over used. Prior to 1970, there were thought to have been fewer than ten documented cases of the disorder. Now, the most reasonable (in my opinion) consensus is that there are no more than a few hundred people alive with the disorder today.

 

Although no one really knows what causes it, common factors in the history of patients in whom the diagnosis seems most likely to be accurate usually involve severe childhood abuse, most often of a sexual nature, most often beginning around the onset of pubery. However, the vast majority of victims of such abuse do not develop DID, so other factors, possibly innate neurological ones, are likely to be involved.

 

Study of DID is complicated by widespread awareness of it. Many psychiatric patients claim to have it, but almost certainly do not, while many therapists believe that it is a common disorder, which it almost certainly is not.

 

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Therapy (PET) performed on a very few confirmed DID patients reveals startling and dramatic evidence that it is a profound disorder, not simply a behavior disorder. The separate personalities appear to use physically distinct regions of the brain. There is no data to indicate that this neurological activity can be exhibited by anyone other than true DID patients.

 

The Wikipedia entries for DID and schizophrenia have a good discussion of this very rare but interesting, and almost certainly real, disorder.

[alexander]

about 90 percent of multiple personality disorders are caused by severe abuse, in most cases during the early childhood because thats when we are still developing and havent yet learned other types of psychological defense mechanisms.

 

how exactly do psychologists define personality?

personality is a description of consistent emotional, thought, and behavior patterns in a person.

 

schitzophrenia would have to do with human psychological defense systems, enough abuse will cause your brain to try to block the current events (abuse) so eventually people create personalities that are not as much hurt by what is going on around them, by creating different sets of behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and science cant really explain everything just yet. and personalities dont always not know about each other, but most of the time for the other personalities it feels like a blackout. and personalities dont always have to be human, although they tend to be that most of the time, oh also they dont have to be of this world, so yes, there are people who have personalities such as dragons and gnomes and stuff :hihi:

[Csongor]

Someone try to took your own, or try to attache as a secondary without your permission,

(abuse)....So the person find himself in a situation, while feel as a different person, as well as act as a different person....

 

 

 

Csongor

[EWright]

Mental illness is caused by wealth, comfort, and leisure. New Orleans was utterly destroyed. More than 300,000 of the lowest class were smashed into flooded streets and abandoned to die by their government. 10,000 of them were herded into the Superdome, huddled amidst growing tons of fresh human excrement as the roof poured water, the temperature and humidity rose, and they died.

 

Was anybody depressed? No, not a one. There is not a shred of evidence that anybody acted in any way other than sustained functional shining sanity. They won't start whining until the Liberals arrive. Then it will be wall-to-wall "chronic post-affective traumatic stress syndrome" for the rest of their freeloading lives. VICTIMS! "GIMME!"

 

Uncle Al says, "Mankind evolved because there was no Welfare office."

 

Uncle Al is worth of nothing but a slow miserable life and an even slower more miserable death. "IGNORANT!" "HATEFUL!" "SPITEFUL!" "WORTHLESS!"

[HydrogenBond]

Split personality can be consciously induced. For example, most people have a work personna and a home personna. Often the two can not both exist optimumly at the same time. If one tries to combine them, they are often not as effective as one each specialized to its specific environment. But in both cases, each will take on a life of its own often with its own lingo, behavior, etc.. The student is often the knurd during the week and drunk during the weekends. The spelling of knurd was changed to nerd to help soften the suggestive affect of this forward-backward polarization..

[alexander]

Split personality can be consciously induced.

That is true, but is extremely rare from what i can tell...

For example, most people have a work personna and a home personna. Often the two can not both exist optimumly at the same time.

And that is not an example of a split personality disorder, that is more along the lines of "masks" that we wear to deal with society then split personality. We are talking about dissociative identity disorder not how we deal with society, dissociation, by the way is a state or a condition in which certain sensations, thoughts, feelings or memories are separated from the normal psyche. Now, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders binds dissociative disorders with symptoms like depersonization, derealization and psychogenic amnesia, none of which normally occur in the work/home persona. Pierre Janet defines the dissociation technique as a defensice maneuvre for psychological trauma, like i said in my previous post, he also dicusses how effective this defense technique is, because it separates the person mentally from the overwhelming traumatic events, an this may lead to a functional breakdown of cognative or neurocognative systems, which in term can cause multiple personalities...

The student is often the knurd during the week and drunk during the weekends.

Once again unless it is a very specialized case, this is also not an example of a dissociative identity disorder...

 

here are some of the reasons why none of the given examples, unless once again a very special and unlikely case, are not a dissociative identity disorder:

1) while only one personality can control the body at any one time seems to be true, for the most part, the other personality or personalities associate the time that they are not in control of the body with temporary amnesia, not entirely the case for either working people or knurds (unless they get drunk, but even then it is not entirely true).

 

2) psychologists refer to personalities or instances of ego, as "selves" or "alter", and some find that some personalities can reside in co-conciousness, and however many cant deal with it, some can live happy, productive lives by negotiating with the other self, which requires inter ego communication, which is just not present with knurds or working people.

 

3) and lastly, in our society, multiples are very usually traced to some kind of abuse in the past, very commonly, abuse of sexual nature in early childhood, or even teenaged years can be traced, nevertheless, multiples are created by a human psychological defense mechanism, which is also very likely not the case with knurds or working men.

 

I think that that presents a signifficant amount of factoids on why the above examples do not illustrate multiple personality disorder, if i said something wrong, feel free to correct me as i am not the person who considers himself any kind of an expert in psychological disorders...

[HydrogenBond]

Your point is well made and defines the distinction between having more than one social mask and an underlying split disorder. But sometimes the distinction is relative. For example, during WWII the Nazi party created a state of mental disorder within an entire culture to where the fantasy of world domination became believed as reality. Ohterwise good people became way over compensated to cruelty. This was way more than a work mask it brought up some deep stuff. This demonstrates that cerebral programming can lead to a split disorder. If anyone thought differently at that time, they were the ones considered with the disorder. Individual programming may be harder to create due to feedback from culture acting a buffer or deprogram. The farthest most people go is personna. But alter the environment used by a particular personna and its less than conscious dynamics begin to appear on the surface.

[questor]

I think that in order to understand this disorder, one has to look into the level of consciousness where it lives. is it a mechanical neurological misfunction, a misfunction of electron transmission, or a misfunction of the thought generation process itself...of which we know little. modern medicine functions on a macroscopic level with many non-specific

tests which give little diagnostic specificity. we are very competent with macroscopic problems such as injuries or accidents, but sorely lacking in successfully attacking biochemical or

genetic diseases. until we are able to better understand the genetic influences and internal functions of cells, many disorders will not be understood or treated properly.

[HydrogenBond]

This is an association between thought and feelings as well as thoughts and instincts. For example if one is hungry they think about food. Conversely, one can think about food and get hungry. Psychology tries to alter the interconnection starting with the thought behind the feeling that reinforces the thought, etc... Psychiatry tries to alter the interconnection starting at the feelings end. Drugs can alter the feelings of depression, thereby altering the thought association that reinforces the feelings, etc.

 

Drug treatment for multiple personalities usually start at the emotion/ instinctive end because the thought end is hard to reach. The results tell use something about the nature of the disorder, i..e, it is forcused by distinct emotional/instinctive potentials combinations. These can get complicated. The potential induces a narrowed memory grid for the ego to work out of, eq. hunger narrows down memory induction and focus to food association.

 

In loose analogy, if we gave an actor a big box of costumes an accessories, he can play any role. If we take a smaller box and just use a couple of costumes it would narrow down the roles he is able to play. If we instead, take a mismatch of clothes, it would be hard to play traditional roles or traditonal roles would seem out of costume. Or new roles would have to be made up.

[questor]

HB ,in your interesting information on thoughts, instincts, and feelings you mention macro structures like brain, neurons,chemicals, etc. what about micro happenings. let's say a person is watching TV. for no good reason, the thought of an old girl friend pops into his mind. can you explain this on a biochemical basis? what actuates the chemical reaction?

does this liberate heat? if electrons are involved in thought, how do they differ from electrons that produce light in a bulb?

[MsShadowDancer]

It is my understanding that we all have various personas to our identity but they are able to work together as one individual. In the cases of split personality, genetics play a part but more intrinsically, it is massive trauma and these incedents push the mind beyond basic coping skills. It allows certain aspects of the personality that are able to handle the trauma to 'fragment' and that aspect of personality witnesses/experiences the trauma(frequently abuse/torture). This is the difficulty in treatment as the therapists have to 'meet' all aspects or most of them and 'introduce' them to each other...then they must work with the different aspects of a persons personality to try and bring the fragmented aspects of the Id together as one being. Many of the other personalites will not recognize the others...and the problem inherently with said recognition, brings the witnessing of the traumatic events to the forefront-where the main personality is thrust into a very threatening position. If the indivdiual is unable or unwilling to process the imput, they will be hard pressed to unify. In fact, imo it seems that the mind will protect the holder and only when the mind is able to process will the 'memories' flood them...when the personality and brain have the tools to deal with the trauma, the memories start to surface. The other personalities may have very specific traits. In fact, true split personalities demonstrate actual changes in voice inflection, handwriting and even physical traits as weak eyes or actual brain wave changes. This demonstrates the power of suggestion....(cheese)

 

Treatment of actual MPDs is protracted and sometimes the best one can do is to get an awareness of the differing factions and a consensus of attempting to work together. :friday:

[Queso]

Uncle Al is worth of nothing but a slow miserable life and an even slower more miserable death. "IGNORANT!" "HATEFUL!" "SPITEFUL!" "WORTHLESS!"

:hihi: