Personality Disorder: Every thing you wanted to know

What Is Multiple Personality Disorder?


Multiple personality disorder is a severe mental disorder in which a person displays two or more distinct identities. There can be as many as 100 personalities or more, although most patients display about 10 to 15 different personalities. Each takes control over the patient's behavior for a period of time, usually adopting a unique name, voice, movement style, and life history.


Dissociative identity disorder


Descriptions of multiple personality disorder can be found in ancient myths and many other writings through the centuries. However, it was not until the 1800s that it was treeted as a mental disorder, and much of what is known about it today was discovered only in recent decades. The formal name for the disorder is dissociative identity (di-SO-see-a-tiv i-DEN-ti-tee) disorder. This means that a person's identity is separating into parts, or dissociating, because of the mental disorder.

What Causes Multiple Personalities?

The exact cause of multiple personality disorder is unknown, but often patients with the disorder have experienced child abuse. This was the case for Sybil, whose mother caused exceptional trauma* for her when she was young. Doctors see multiple personality disorder as an attempt to cope with particularly traumatic events in a person's life. For example, a child might deal with extreme physical or sexual abuse by hiding memories of the abuse and displaying other personalities.

Sybil Isabel Dorsett



She seems to have experienced 16 separate personalities, two of whom were male.

It was the horrific child abuse Sybil's psychotic mother inflicted on her, along with the failure of her father to rescue her from it, that caused these personalities. Each one embodied feelings and emotions the 'real' Sybil could not cope with. The waking Sybil was deprived of all these emotions, and was therefore a rather drab figure. She was unaware of her other personas; while they were in 'control' of the body, Sybil suffered blackouts and did not remember the episodes. It was only the intervention of Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, a psychoanalyst, that alerted Sybil to them.

The sequence of "splitting" which by which these alter egos appear to have emerged as separate identities is outlined in the 'family tree' above. You can explore these personalities - who they were, and why they existed - by clicking on their names, below.

Vicky Ruthie The Blonde Helen Marjorie Peggy Louisiana Clara

Even the Famous Pop Star Britney Spears is said to have Personality Disorder.



Britney Spears suffers from multiple personality disorder, it has been claimed. The 'Piece of Me' singer has been overheard speaking in a British accent recently and it is claimed 'the British girl' is an identity the mother-of-two cannot control.

A source told gossip website TMZ.com: "Britney has multiple personalities, including 'the British girl', as we call her. She goes into this identity and gets a British accent, but when she comes out of it she has absolutely no idea what she did during that time."

"She has other identities and we have given a lot of them names. There is the weepy girl, the diva, the incoherent girl and many more."

Britney, 26, was hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation on January 3 following a three-hour stand-off with police at her Beverly Hills home, when she refused to return sons Sean Preston, two and 16-month-old Jayden James to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

As she was wheeled out to the ambulance, strapped to a stretcher, she was caught on video speaking in a British accent. The insider also claims she had become 'the British girl' the day she did not attend her court ordered deposition and claims to have no recollection of it.

Meanwhile, Britney's friend Sam Lufti gave a telephone interview to Ryan Seacrest's radio show, denying she is pregnant and insisting she has no plans to marry her new photographer boyfriend Adnan Ghalib.

Britney can be heard on the phone during the interview, talking from the shower. She said: "Get out, I'm naked, get out!"

Another personality is the Former NFL Star Herschel Walker



Walker's diagnosis answered a lot of questions for Walker's ex-wife Cindy Grossman, who was married to Walker for 16 years before she knew about the illness.

"Well, now it makes perfect sense, because each personality has a different interest. This one has an interest in ballet, this one has an interest in the Marines, this one had an interest [in the] FBI, this one had an interest in sports," she said.

Grossman recognized different sides of her husband, even different voices. "It's hard to explain, but even his physical countenance would change. ... There was also a very sweet, lovable [personality]. That's the one he told me I married. He told me I didn't marry Herschel."

Walker says he does not remember the event, and many others, including — shockingly — the highlight of his collegiate football career, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1982.

Periods of memory loss are one of the symptoms of the disorder. "A lot of the things that happened there that she may remember, he doesn't remember because those were the things that were being done by the alters that were so unlike him," Mungadze explained.

"Do you not remember something like that because you think that was another alter," Woodruff asked, "or do you want to get out of having to talk about it?"

"No, no, no, no," Walker insisted. "I'm talking about everything else. If I can remember it, I'll talk about it."

There were other incidents Walker does not recall. "I was pregnant and it was probably 100 degrees out," Grossman said. "Herschel was dressed in a full sweat suit, tights, sweats, jacket, and he was running through the house. ... he said, 'Close the door. I am having bad thoughts. I am thinking I am going to hurt you.'"

On another occasion, Walker threatened to kill his wife, his wife's friend and his therapist in a therapy session.

Mungadze said he saw many alters on that day: a raging one, a protector, and finally a child when Walker hit a wall and broke his hand.

Walker does not deny the events, but says he has no memory of them. "No, I don't remember that, but I probably did it."

After a hospital trip to treat Walker's hand, Grossman remembers Walker calling her, "'Miss lady."

"And I said, 'My name is Cindy.' And he said, 'Herschel's hungry. Do you know what he likes to eat?'" she recalled. "I said, 'Well, I know he likes wings."