The condition once known as multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a very real psychological phenomenon that until recently was mis-understood Dissociative identity disorder, DID, as we now callit, is a mental illness where a persons thoughts, feelings, and memories arescattered throughout two or more separate personalities within the victimsmind (Appelbaum 107). In 1973 perhaps the worlds most famouspsychiatric patient ever, Sybil brought attention to what was until then a rarediagnoses. Sybil was ritually abused as a child and was later found topossess sixteen separate personalities, including women with English accentsand even two little boys (Schreiber 43). The case brought DID to theattention of the public as a real psychological disorder. Through recentresearch we can now clearly depict the connection between child abuse anddissociative identity disorder.There have been stories throughout history of people who havebehaved strangely and then later were unable to recall their actions. Thesepeople were often seen as freaks or as people that were lying to either gainattention or justify a wrongful act that they had committed (Putnam 54). Thefirst medical studies of what we now call DID did not appear until the late1800s. The cases were of people that had no recollection of things they haddone. As early as 1896 researchers recognized that early childhood seductionexperiences were responsible for 18 female cases of hysteria, a conditionclosely associated with dissociative disorders (Putnam 56). In a famous caseof hysteria, Anna O, who suffered from dual personality, the initial traumawas the death of Anna O's father. It was not until the publication of Sybil in 1973 that childhoodphysical and sexual abuse became widely recognized as precipitants ofdissociative identity disorder(Schreiber 43). Since 1973 numerousinvestigators have confirmed the high incidence of physical and sexual abusein multiple personality. In 100 cases Pu...
