Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL ACHENBACH|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A: You probably think that multiple personality disorder is kind of freaky, but at the same time your cross-dressing Martian alter, ``Zarmoo,'' thinks it's fairly normal, while the alter you call ``chair leg'' has no opinion since it is an inanimate object.
MPD is, of course, no laughing matter to those who feel they are suffering from it. There are tens of thousands of these people - MPD is a booming disease. A couple of decades ago it was essentially unknown. It is still found mainly in the United States - a strange American disease of the late 20th century.
The ``epidemic'' of MPD raises a red flag. Is this thing real, or some kind of psychiatric fad?
We spoke to Richard Kluft, a psychiatrist who is a leader in the MPD field and runs the Dissociative Disorders Program at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. He says, ``This is a real condition in the sense that anything is a real condition.''
Experts have overlooked it for years, he says. A recent study in five countries, including the United States, found that about one out of 20 psychiatric inpatients had undiagnosed MPD.
The key symptom is ``dissociation.'' Everyone dissociates some. You dissociate when you drive a car and daydream. Supposedly a trained therapist can tell when your dissociation is so severe that it is a sign of multiple personalities. A lesser diagnosis, Kluft says, is called ``dissociative disorder not otherwise specific.''
Why are some people ``multiples''? Kluft says people's identities are shattered by horrible childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse, loss of a loved one, or childhood disease. During trauma, the child dissociates as a defense mechanism. The coherent central identity can never re-establish itself. The child takes on 10, 20 or even more identities, of different ages, sexes, even different species and non-living objects.
``It's like the imaginary companion process gone wild,'' says Kluft.
Now let's splash cold water on our face and start over.
You might want to entertain the possibility that MPD is an amazing, tragic example of what is called an ``iatrogenic'' phenomenon. That means it is a product not of nature but of the therapist's office.
``There is no case in world history of any MPD that was ever observed in nature. Every MPD that's ever been observed has been observed after the intervention of a therapist,'' says Richard Ofshe, a social psychologist who is a vocal critic of MPD and is the author of the book ``Making Monsters.''
Critics of MPD say that what routinely happens in these cases is that someone who is suffering from something - depression, anxiety, whatever - goes to a therapist. The therapist happens to be one who believes in the multiple personality disorder (many do not). The therapist announces the diagnosis. Because the patient has MPD, this is evidence of the severe childhood abuse or trauma. The patient however often doesn't remember any such horrible event. This means the therapist must ``recover'' the memory through hypnosis and other techniques.
You already know that many experts say this process of memory repression and later recovery is bogus, so let's not belabor that. Once the memory is recovered, the patient has to confront the terrible truth that Dad or Mom or Uncle Johnnie was a monstrous abuser and that the patient's entire childhood was a nightmare of secret torture and betrayal. In thousands of cases there are memories of Satanic cults, baby-eating, and various other B-movie horrors.
The delights of therapy!
It's important to understand that even if MPD is iatrogenic, as critics contend, it's still ``real'' to the person with the diagnosis.
``MPD is an artifact. Therefore it exists in the same way that an arrowhead exists. It's just not formed by nature,'' says Paul McHugh, director of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. ``Right now it's most often produced by therapists.''
As a parallel, he notes that there are people who become convinced that they are blind. They behave as though they are blind. But there is nothing wrong with their eyes. They have no physiological problem. McHugh says that MPD is no different. The person with multiple personalities is role playing and will do so increasingly while being ``treated'' by the therapist.
McHugh says there's a great way to make the multiple personalities go away. Ignore them. Ignore all those alters. Amazingly they will fade away.
The person may still have psychological problems, of course. To be human is to be subject to all kinds of mental anguish and confusion. A person with MPD has a name for the confusion and chaos. It's a dramatic ailment the existence of which is validated by a professional. You might say that, for some people, being a multiple gives them an identity.
- Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB