Does multiple personality disorder really exist?
Dear Cecil: My wife and I are having a disagreement on whether multiple personality disorder is real or not. She works in a substance abuse clinic and says she sees people with this disorder quite often. I on the other hand feel that multiple personality disorder is a crock of dung. I have looked this up on the Internet, and views seem to be split fifty-fifty. What do you think–does this disorder exist? — Mark, via the Internet Your columnist doubts it. Your columnist doubts everything. But in this case he’s got a lot of company. Multiple personality disorder, now officially known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), remains the object of bitter controversy. One thing’s clear, though–it’s not nearly as common as people thought just a few years ago. Possible cases of split personality have been reported in the medical literature since the early 19th century, and the condition was formally defined in the first years of the 20th. But until recently it was considered extremely rare–
