I don't believe MPD exists
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jet_blanchard — 17 years ago(August 19, 2008 03:03 AM)
ARTICLE ABRIDGED, BUT SECTIONS QUOTED ARE VERBATIM (COPY AND PASTE):
LAST LINE HIGHLIGHT
IS MINE. Jet
http://www.newsweek.com/id/57343
By Anne Underwood | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 29, 2007
Even for a psychiatric patient, Karen Overhill seemed unusually devoid of hope on the day in 1989 she walked into the Chicago office of Dr. Richard Baer. As weeks of therapy grew into months, antidepressants didn't help her, at least not consistently. She was suicidaland the flat, emotionless way she stated her wish to die made Baer fear that she might actually follow through. Eventually, Karen began to volunteer stories of childhood abuse. And she mentioned odd memory lapses. She would find herself in strange places with no awareness of how she'd gotten there. She couldn't even remember having had sex with her husband, although she must have, since they had two children.
The remarkable medical journey that ensued is the subject of Baer's new book, "Switching Time." It recounts the 17-year course of Karen's therapy in all its painful detail and sheds new light on multiple personality disorder (MPD), the controversial illness that afflicted her. (Karen Overhill is a pseudonym Baer created to protect his patient and her family.) The book describes the challenges Baer faced as more and more of Karen's alter egos emergedmen, women and childrena total of 17, each with his or her own character traits, mental problems and agenda. Baer had to get to know them all, then persuade them to wipe out their individual identities by merging into one. It was the defining case of his careerand one that may have saved Karen's life.Still, it's easy to see why MPD remains controversial. Although the condition has been observed for 200 yearsand is officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association under the formal name "dissociative identity disorder"it is rare enough that most therapists never treat a case. Some psychiatrists doubt that it exists at all, claiming it is the product of suggestion. In some cases, they're probably right. The 1973 best seller "Sybil" led to a wave of diagnoses by therapists who didn't really understand the condition. One psychiatric hospital in Maryland "had a whole ward with patientssome male, some female, some mooing like cows or barking like dogs," says Dr. Paul McHugh, former chair of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and a leading skeptic. It didn't help that both the made-for-TV movie version of "Sybil," which starred Sally Field, and the 1957 film "The Three Faces of Eve" gave exaggerated portrayals of radical personality shifts, which made MPD seem more bizarre than believableor that the disorder was later enmeshed in the controversy over false "recovered memories" of childhood abuse. MPD became an embarrassing diagnosis in the psychiatric community.
But it didn't go away. Dr. Frank Putnamwho has studied the condition extensively, first at the National Institute of Mental Health and now at Cincinnati Children's Hospitalcontinues to receive calls from psychiatrists around the country who are stunned when a patient of theirs turns out to have the disorder. "There's nothing like seeing a patient who has it to make you believe," he says. Today there are clearer diagnostic criteria and a better understanding of the causes.
The condition, says Dr. Herbert Speigel, who occasionally treated Sybil during her therapist's absence, is "real, but rare."
"Vademecum" -
shoyt_2001 — 17 years ago(August 21, 2008 02:28 AM)
Scimetar Northerner I hope you will never be a psychologist or psychiatrist. You have closed your mind. This is why Dr. Wilbur was able to open a door into Sybil's world. She had not closed any doors. She followed the evidence. Other doctors failed to notice what was happening in the patient even though they had clues.
Your friends or yourself, would probably not recognize this if you did see it. When the people who treat mental illness only look for a way to control the person and keep them in check, they are not looking for the cause of the illness. Such is the case of most patients today unless they are able to enroll in a really good program for drug or alcohol intervention. Outside of that, there are very few affordable programs that would look in depth into anyone's mental state. -
skay_baltimore — 13 years ago(May 08, 2012 07:03 PM)
Thank you. It seems as if Scimetar Northerner is hell bent on spewing his/her ignorance in each and every thread dealing with the subject of MPD/DID. Never mind that the DSM-10 lists DID as a legitimate psychiatric disorder; Scimetar Northerner knows better.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss) -
Purrrple — 17 years ago(September 01, 2008 05:13 AM)
It exists, and is more common than people think, but MPD/DID is nothing like know-it-all Psychiatrists believe it to be.
Just.. trust my opinion on the subject. I've neither any need nor desire to explain my expertise, just to state I've more than enough of it to know it is a very real state of existance for multiple minds to share one body.
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do." - Benjamin Franklin. -
la_cinematheque — 12 years ago(January 13, 2014 07:52 AM)
I know you left this comment many years ago, but it's too laughable not to respond to. Everyone should accept your anonymous internet comment as fact on blind faith? Really, you REALLY think that's the way intelligent adults should engage with the world? Unbelievable.
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Raven34 — 17 years ago(November 04, 2008 09:24 AM)
There are cynics for everything in the world. Your not believing the disorder exists doesn't make it any less real to to those who are diagnosed with it each day.It DOES exist. My heart goes out to those who have been tortured in the ways Shirley and others were. It is so difficult listening to that.
Raven
Does Not Suffer From MPD -
indy_go_blue44 — 15 years ago(December 22, 2010 07:37 PM)
Over the summer I've befriended my back yard neighbor who is bipolar. He's pretty well controlled with medication, but it's interesting (and sad) to note his occasional extremes.
I'll admit I didn't "see" his condition until after he had told me his father was near death after a heart attack. After not seeing him for several days and assuming he was spending time with his dad, I saw his wife hanging laundry in the back yard and asked how ****'s dad was doing? She said, "he's fine. Why?" I explained and she told me about his condition and that when he's manic he's a world class liar.
I never worked as a psych nurse but I did work with patients with both medical and psychological problems. All I saw with **** were what appeared to be normal periods of happiness and sadness the same thing I see in people around me everyday, myself included.
My point in this ramble is that in a lifetime it's possible that we've known someone with DID, but because we saw only a certain personality or accepted their behavior as idiosyncracies, we never thought about them being "someone" else.
He always follows the creek. -
ceebeegee — 14 years ago(June 08, 2011 03:22 PM)
My stepmother has a Ph.D. in psychology and one of her specialties is MPD, so yes, it is real. For some weird reason, there seems to be a small group of (AFAICT) mostly men who seem determined to disprove it.
edited for spelling -
Trixie27 — 12 years ago(June 06, 2013 11:38 AM)
These type of posts debunking the reality of MPD/DID fall into the category of how many people choose to live their lives- IN DENIAL. DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) definitely exists and is a very painful, confusing mental disorder for people who were severely traumatized in their childhood. RMS (Repressed Memory Syndrome) also exists, primarily due to physical and sexual abuse by a parent or close family member. Those people denying it's existence, mostly males who were accused of the abuse, debunk it for obvious reasons. If you have experienced any level of trauma as a child, you know this is all real- no matter how horrific it sounds to others. These disorders manifest as survival coping mechanisms for fragile, young minds. Thankfully, we have a society that is more open to learning about physical, sexual and emotional child abuse, not sweeping it under the rug or turning a blind eye like in the past. The safer an abuse victim feels, the more they will share. Sometimes it is decades after the abuse occurred and after going to several therapists or psychiatric hospitals. I've met quite a few people diagnosed with DID and that I suspected suffered from the disorder. One fascinating story I heard in a therapy group I was in came from a women in her late 20s whose alter came out while she was driving and she almost crashed her car because that alter didn't know how to drive! She was not lying and had no reason to. The disorder prevented her from carrying on normal relationships or keeping a job. It's heartbreaking to see what people who have DID actually go through before their alters are successfully merged. It can take years of therapy, if it ever happens. Repressed trauma can resurface if triggered by another traumatic event.
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tightjeansdude — 12 years ago(April 02, 2014 11:28 PM)
Well I believe it does exist, because I have it. I'm 100% serious. My case is not exactly as depicted in the film 'Sybil' though, for example I don't have the 'black outs' like she did where she can't remember what was going on when another personality would pop out. I am aware of what's going on the whole time another personality comes out. I have at least 3 other personalities. I've had this since I was very young. I don't see anything really wrong with it either. It's just my way of coping with certain situations that life throws at me. I'm not keen on it being classified as a mental 'disorder'. For me, this so-called 'disorder' has always helped me to MAINTAIN order. In the film Sybil, Dr. Wilbur once described Sybil's condition as a 'creative alternative to insanity' which is a pretty good way of putting it. For people like myself who have this condition, it's actually what KEEPS us sane and helps us get through the pressures of life. Others cope by by smoking, drinking, drugging, meditation, exercise, etc. This is just another way.
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jaroslaw99 — 9 years ago(September 14, 2016 05:20 AM)
Scimetar - I find it interesting you reference what you know and people who work in mental health that you know have never encountered MPD. How many people do you know working in mental health? The world is a big place with billions of people! I'm assuming you don't know everyone nor have you read everything. That said, I doubt if MPD is nearly as widespread as alluded to after the movie Sybil came out. But there are probably a few people that actually have it. Why not? Idiot Savants can play the piano with no lessons. A few people are geniuses. A few guys are hung like horses. A few people have amazing singing voices without training. Now that repressed memory syndrome business I think was a real hoax. Further reading from sources here make it pretty clear Sybil was a hoax too.