Dissociative Identity Disorder
Modern popular interest in Multiple Personality Disorder (call Dissociative Identity Disorder in the DSM) dates back to the release, in 1957, of the movie The Three Faces of Eve . In the movie, which is based on a real case, a depressed housewife, Eve White, is brought by her husband to consult a psychiatrist because her behavior has been strange. Although she denies it, she has purchased uncharacteristically seductive clothing and has been singing and dancing in bars.
Her surprised doctor is soon confronted, during therapy sessions, with a different personality-the sexy Eve Black. Eve Black, he learns, is the one who has been engaging in the strange behaviors-behaviors of which Eve White had no conscious knowledge. The psychiatrist recognizes the case as an example of multiple personality disorder, and embarks on a course of psychotherapy in search of the woman’s missing memories. Psychotherapy helps her to recover the repressed memory of an instance of childhood abuse: being forced by her mother to kiss the corpse of a dead relative. The therapy also enables a third personality to emerge, that of intelligent, insightful Jane. This new personality replaces the other two, and Jane establishes a new life with a loving man.
This case presents what continue to be the classic features of MPD: a woman (the large majority of patients diagnosed with MPD are female) who experienced some form of childhood trauma which she copes with by escaping from the trauma through the creation of one or more alter personalities.
Although the disorder was extraordinarily rare at the time of the movie, the frequency of its diagnosis increased quickly, spurred on by the movie Sybil in 1976 and the widespread reporting of other cases in newspapers and on popular daytime talk shows on television. By 1995, there had been over 40,000 cases reported in North America , and the number of personalities per patient had increased dramatically as well. Whereas Eve had only two personalities when she entered therapy (the third personality replaced the other two), Sybil had sixteen, and some patients more recently have been reported with hundreds of personalities, including those of animals.
The Strange Case of Bill Green
Bill Green was a convict who, while in therapy in prison, was diagnosed with MPD by a therapist named Mary Alice. Mary Alice continued to work with Mr. Green after his release. One night, however, Mr. Green went to Mary Alice’s home and sexually assaulted her. Bill Green claimed that he didn’t commit the crime. Instead, the crime had been committed by Tyrone, one of his alter personalities.
The defense was not allowed to raised the MPD defense at trial and Mr. Green was convicted. Years later, however, an appeals court ruled that the MPD defense should have been permitted, and Mr. Green was given a new trial. At the trial his attorney claimed that he should be found innocent by reason of insanity because he suffered from MPD. What makes this case even more bizarre than most MPD cases is that the victim of the crime was Mr. Green’s therapist, and she did not blame Mr. Green for the crime. She believed in his MPD, believed the crime was committed by the alter personality Tyrone, and wanted Mr. Green found innocent. Another odd feature of the case is that Mr. Green had a girlfriend at the time that he committed the crime, and he and his girlfriend were married while he was in jail following the initial conviction.
