I recently started watching Showtime's new series, "The United States of Tara," a drama based around a woman who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). It is a fascinating show to watch, and it made me want to know more about this condition. While watching the first 2 episodes I became curious about what DID actually is, and how accurate of a portrayal the show is. Tara, the main character, seems to have an extreme case of DID; she has 3 alternate identities and no control over when they will come and go, but it seems that they take control of her in times of stress. Each identity is a strong personality, and each dresses and speaks differently from the next. Tara also has no memory of their presence after she returns to herself. It makes me wonder if DID is ever this extreme, or if it is shown this way solely for entertainment purposes.
Only the first 2 episodes have aired, so I'm sure the show will address more of my curiosities as the season progresses. In the meanwhile, I went to the Showtime website and found this video interview with psychiatrist Richard P. Kluft M.D. who deals with patients who have DID:
I found this interview informative about the condition, Kluft explains that cases of DID as extreme as Tara's exist, yet they are very rare. I was probably more surprised by how often less-extreme cases than Tara's actually occur. According to Kluft about 1 in 200 people may have DID, yet it is rarely diagnosed because the changes in identity can be so subtle that they are unnoticeable. With a statistic that high it makes me wonder whether or not I may know someone affected by this disorder.
1 comment:
I have never known that this kind of psychiatric illness existed. I watched the short linked video interviewing with a doctor. The doctor said that it can be happened if a person was exposed to an extremely shocking situation when she or he was a young child. Even if a person has been inherited his original genetic characteristic, what he sees can affect his blood then he could be changed for example, if people get encountered distressful situation they can not talk temporarily or forever. Blood affects people mental position. I imagine what if one of my families or friends has the DID, it will be really sad and hard to accept his dramatic behavior changes from the way I have associated with to the unexpected or unwanted ways. I haven't watched this TV show yet but I wish the show addresses entertainment as well as the DID issue.
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