Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder

One of the reasons for the decision by the psychiatric community to change the disorder's name from Multiple Personality Disorder to Dissociative Identity Disorder is that "multiple personalities" is somewhat of a misleading term. A person diagnosed with DID(MPD) has within her two or more entities, or personality states, each with its own independent way of relating, perceiving, thinking and remembering about herself and her life. If two or more of these entities take control of the person's behavior at a given time (what do you mean by a given time?), a diagnosis of MPD can be made. These entities previously were often called "personalities," even though the term did not accurately reflect the common definition of the word as the total aspect of our psychological makeup. It is important to keep in mind that although these alternate personality states may appear to be very different, they are all manifestations of a single person.

The cause of MPD is severe trauma, most of the trauma happens at a young age and the violator is usually someone who the child knows. In satanic cults, children mistreated and abused, to intentionally cause MPD, do not know everyone who is involved in the abuse. Examples given by Clark are children put in a coffin with rats, snakes, and bugs then buried alive. Later the satanic cult leader or priest will rescue the child therefore making the child feel obligated to that person. In satanic cults, children are also raped. During the rape, men and women would violate the child they would also violate the child with objects such as a knife, an upside down crucifix, and other objects (Clark, 1993, 181-198). The child gets to the point where they think they are going to die, and they disassociate themselves from the situation, this is when the personalities are born. Other types of abuse are emotional and psychological abuse by a parent. One of Clark's patients remembered under hypnosis a time when she was two. Her mother took her outside put her in a tree and told her to jump, the child after a slight hesitation did so, and the mother stepped back, watched the child fall to the ground, and laughed. These traumatic events and others are the cause of MPD (Clark, 1993, 105-106).