A friend of yours mistakenly thinks that a person with multiple personalities and a person with schizophrenia have the same condition. Explain to your friend why these two conditions are different

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will include that multiple personalities is a dissociative identity disorder, in which the person has two or more separate identities, while schizophrenia is a psychotic condition, in which the person has had a "split with reality," that is, lost contact with reality. In a dissociative identity disorder, each personality may have a different voice, vocabulary, posture, or talents with the person not aware of the other personalities. These additional personalities appear to be defenses against intolerable anxiety. A history of childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse, is found in a high percentage of people whose personalities split into multiple identities. Therapy for dissociative identity disorders may make use of hypnosis, which allows contact with the various personality states. The goal of therapy is integration and fusion of the identities into a single, balanced personality. Dissociative identity disorder is a rare condition, while schizophrenia affects one percent of the population in any given year. Schizophrenia is marked by delusions, hallucinations, apathy, thinking abnormalities, and a "split" between thought and emotion. Schizophrenic emotions may be blunted or very inappropriate. Treatment involves antipsychotic medication, hospitalization, and supportive therapy after release from the hospital.