See Also: multiple personality disorder(encyclopedia)
multiple personality disorder(medicine)
Multiple personality(health)
multiple personality(dictionary)
multiple personality(medicine)
personality disorder(encyclopedia)
personality disorder(medicine)
paranoid personality disorder(medicine)
compulsive personality disorder(medicine)
cyclothymic personality disorder(medicine)

multiple personality disorder (sh)




or dissociative identity disorder

Rare condition in which two or more independent and distinct personality systems develop in the same individual.

Each personality may alternately inhabit the person's conscious awareness to the exclusion of the others, but one is usually dominant. The various personalities typically differ from one another in outlook, temperament, and body language and give themselves different first names. The condition is generally viewed as resulting from dissociative mental processes
that is, the splitting off from conscious awareness and control of thoughts, feelings, memories, and other mental components in response to situations that are painful, disturbing, or somehow unacceptable to the person experiencing them. Treatment is aimed at integrating the disparate personalities back into a single and unified personality.