“What Happened? Who Am I?”: Aspects Of Child Abuse And Multiple Personality Disorders

8 Pages 1939 Words

Ever wonder why some people claim to have another personality? The relationship between child abuse and multiple personality disorder has only emerged over the last 100 years. Multiple personality disorder is the existence of more than one dominant personality within an individual. Each personality has its own behavior and social relationships. The disorder is most commonly associated with physical and/or sexual abuse of the sufferer at a young age. Like other victims of child abuse, sometimes those with multiple personalities abuse their children (Coons). The abuse they go through is often prolonged and done by a family member but not in all cases. Diagnosing someone with multiple personality disorder is often hard for many reasons. Patients often withhold important information that would be used to diagnose the disorder because they do not want to be labeled insane. Doctor’s ignorance about the disorder is another reason it is often misdiagnosed. People also tend to misuse the word multiple personality because they claim they have this disorder to get out of trouble with the law. Multiple personality disorder was originally thought of as being extremely rare, so most professionals thought they would never see a case. Treatment is possible for someone with multiple personalities but there are several factors to consider over a long period of time.
The history of multiple personality disorders extends back into the New Testament times of the first century when numerous references to demon possession, a forerunner of multiple personality were described. This phenomenon continued to be prevalent until well into the 19th century and is still here today in certain areas of the world. Eberhardt Gmelin described the first American case of multiple personality in 1791 (Cohen 42). The first American case was that of Mary Reynolds was first reported in 1815. The late 19th century saw a flurry of publications about multiple ...