Essay, Research Paper
Multiple Personalities: Do They Really Exist
Multiple personalities- the existence of two or more distinct
personalities or personality states within one person. In actuality, up
to ten or even more personalities can coexist within one person, some
documented cases have revealed over one hundred. But, the question
remains, what exactly is the multiple personality disorder (MPD)? First
I will look at what exactly the disorder is. It is, in simple terms,
many complex personalities all inhabiting the same body. At any given
time, one of those personalities is in control of the body. Each one has
different tastes, style, thought process, and many other things that
define a person. However, research has proven even more than that. In
clinical studies it has been found that of the different personalities
of one person, the eye prescription, allergies, athletic ability, and
even diabetes can exist in one of the personalities and not the others.
The person can switch at any given time from one personality to another,
often not realizing it. This can account for memory loss and time loss
in the primary personality, who often does not have access to the
memories of the other personalities. A common misconception among the
general public is the confusion of MPD with the disease of
schizophrenia. Schizophrenics do NOT have distinct personalities,
rather, they have hallucinations of voices outside their heads.
Schizophrenia is caused by brain malfunctions and can be treated with
drugs, whereas suffers of MPD cannot because MPD is an almost purely
psychological disorder. MPD seems to be caused mainly by incredibly
violent and terrible childhood abuse. In fact, about 98% of MPD
sufferers were abused as children. The disorder also occurs between
three to nine times more in women than men, the person being abused
creates other personalities to handle the pain. In the case of a man
named Milligan, his father beat him and sexually abused him. Then he
forced the boy to dig his own grave, burying him alive with only a stove
pipe to breath through. Then the father urinated into the pipe onto the
boy’s face. With that kind of abuse, you either go crazy, die, or
develop other personalities. That is why, in many people with MPD, there
are agitated and distracted child personalities. These personalities
were created in order to suffer the pain of abuse. When the abuse was
over, their call was no longer needed and the primary personality could
resume control, dropping with that second personality all memory of the
event and continuing as if nothing happened. This type of personality
exists in almost all MPD sufferers. Another common personality is the
Persecutor personality. This personality is created to absorb the rage
the person feels towards his abusers. It often lashes out, either at
other people or at the other personalities, because it believes some of
the punishment was their fault. To punish that personality it will often
harm the body of the person, not realizing it is hurting itself in the
process. A final common personality is the Protector personality. It is
created to give a feeling of protection to the child personalities and
to try to prevent the Persecutor from lashing out at others or itself.
These are obviously not all the personalities, found, but they are the
most common. Due to all these conflicting interests the personalities
often argue with each other. This is why the person often hears voices
“inside his head” whereas the schizophrenic hears them from outside in
the world. Many people dispute the existence of multiple personalities.
They argue that such an idea is impossible and that the people are
simply making it up. However, I believe the opposite, and many people
share my opinion due to one study. Around 10 years ago a Dr. Putnam
conducted an experiment, whereby he hooked several MPD sufferers up to a
machine that measures brain waves. He then subjected each personality of
each person to a set of stimuli. Each personality reacted differently,
the difference was around the same as between two separate people. The
control group of volunteers faking the disorder could produce any
difference, indicating to me that something is very different about
those states of mind, and they cannot simply make up the changes in
response to stimuli, nor can they fake diabetes and different physical
requirements as I stated earlier as examples in differences of
personalities. To move on to treatment, there is virtually no treatment
a psychiatrist can offer other than extensive psychotherapy and
hypnosis. In bringing out the suffering that caused the development of
personalities, usually many personalities will “fuse” into a more
complete whole, though some retain a few personalities. Some MPD
sufferers would rather keep their personalities, they fear that the
special skills each one has might be lost if they are all fused into one
big personality. For one of the most complicated areas of this topic, I
will now discuss crimes. Crimes where a multiple personality is in any
way involved immediately become very complicated. Who is at fault? Who
is testifying when that person gets on the witness stand? Are they
faking it to get an “innocent by insanity” judgment? It is an easy way
out, to lie about having MPD to get an innocent verdict, and that must
be decided by the jury in a trial. The real problem comes when the MPD
person is the plaintiff or defendant. In one example, a woman with
twenty or more personalities ended up sleeping with a man whom she knew.
He claims one of her personalities consented to have sex with him. While
having sex, one of her child personalities came out and she thought she
was being raped, though she didn’t voice this until afterwards when she
complained of being raped. He does, however, admit to knowing about her
disorder. So who is at fault here? I would have to say it is not the
man’s fault, she consented and therefore it was not a rape. However,
others claim else wise. They say that since he knew about her disorder
he was taking advantage of her. I cannot agree, for as long as she
consented, he didn’t intentionally commit any crime and cannot be
prosecuted for it, even if it wasn’t her main personality, it was still
“her.” The other type of case involving multiple personalities is even
more involved, that is where one personality commits the crime, to the
others’ horror and surprise. In this case, is that person liable for the
damage another personality caused? In the example of Juanita Maxwell she
had a violent personality named Wanda who robbed two banks nine years
after being acquitted on the insanity defense for killing a
seventy-three year old woman. What do you do with this person? Do you
lock them up and throw away the key? Do you release them on grounds of
insanity? Seeing as she was acquitted for murder, apparently the legal
system thinks they should be allowed to be treated. I agree with this.
However, many people disagree vehemently over this subject. Many feel
they have committed a crime and should be punished the same as anyone
else, and sometimes this happens. However, it happens more often with
men than women, who are usually steered towards the psychiatric
treatment route and are prosecuted less than men. Men offenders are
viewed as brutal beasts, while women are seen as disturbed oftentimes,
or at least that is how it seems to me. However, offenders with true MPD
should not go to jail, where conditions might worsen the disorder due to
more abuse and bad conditions. Also, in jail, there is almost no hope
for diagnosis and help, so when they are released they will not be any
better than when they went in and will probably offend again. So putting
them in jail is hurting society, not helping it by keeping them off the
streets. However many are too paranoid to realize this, they just want
to throw them where they won’t be seen for a long time. These paranoiacs
don’t look in the long term, just the immediate results. I feel they
should go to therapy to help get rid of their problems. Research has
shown psychotherapy is the only effective way to help MPD, and it
doesn’t come in prison. If they go to therapy for 2 years and are cured
it helps society more than if they are locked out of sight for 20 years.
So in cases where it can be proven it is a case of MPD I say send them
to the psychiatric ward. All in all, multiple personalities are kind of
an obscure subject. Not much research has been done on them, though I
think they have fascinating potential, both in curiosity and in the
effects of mind control on the body as I discussed earlier, and they
should be researched much more.