What's going on in the mind of a person with a split personality?

I'll add my "5 kopecks". When I was studying at the Faculty of Psychology, a teacher, whom I have no reason not to believe, told us that "split personality" is a diagnosis invented by filmmakers, but in practice this does not occur. For cinema, the "split" is really a godsend, so many different plot developments can be invented around it. On my own behalf, I will say that in special altered states of consciousness, the behavior and feeling of oneself as a person can really be radically different, so much so that those around him will perceive him as two different people. But still, it will be the same person. It's just that in one state he is active, and in the other he is very passive, and goes with the flow. At a glance, you can read about the active state, for example, it can mean "streaming state".

Different things can happen. It depends on the REASON. There may be mental illness due to stress, depression, shock. For example, the most famous person with this disease - Billy Milligan - had a dozen of these split. And each personality had its own character, history and habits.

And here's another reason for. psychiatry does not want to hear. In addition to psycho-neurological factors, the addition (not hooks, those are simpler) of inorganics (entities) in the aura / biofield of a person lead to a split personality. It is during the connection that the so-called "obsession" appears, sudden cravings for various sexual perversions and other things that deal with low-frequency energies, which these entities feed on, and the person is used as a kind of provider or donor. Usually, upon connection, the entity takes complete control over thoughts and body.

Unfortunately, before understanding this, modern psychiatry still has to cut and cut. :(

As the doctor said in the famous film - the head is a dark subject and cannot be examined. By and large, we do not know what is going on in the head of an ordinary "unitary" citizen, and when he is also "split", then all that remains is to throw up his hands and retreat before the riddle of impossible complexity.

Split personality / consciousness. Is an outdated term that is not used in modern psychiatry. Now they use the diagnostic definitions of "multiple personality disorder" (PML in ICD10, DSM up to the 4th revision), "dissociated identity disorder" (RDI, starting from DSM-IV). The main etiologic factor for this disorder is chronic early childhood trauma in the context of relationships with significant adults. As a rule, this is seduction or sexual violence of an incestuous nature, systematic savage physical violence, bullying, extreme poverty, prolonged stay in a war zone, ethnic armed conflicts.

In Russia, perhaps, even if this diagnosis is made officially, it is extremely rare. The psychotherapeutic community is a different matter. Among so-called "non-medical" psychotherapists, there are occasional confident claims about interviewing and treating patients with this dissociative disorder. The reliability of the diagnosis in these cases is very doubtful. Most often, it seems that these are patients not with PML / RDI, but with narcissistic or stage (histrionic) personality disorder and borderline personality organization, who have perceived the mythology of dissociated identity in the form in which it is broadcast by film production, and play these stories in relations with psychotherapist.

In the special literature devoted to PML / RDI, it is customary to use the terms alter personality and personal system. The personality system is the totality of all the alter personalities of an individual with this disorder. The behavior and mental processes of people with PML / RDI depend on what kind of alter personality dominates at the moment. Many types of alter personalities have been described. For example, with the dominance of a child's alter personality, behavior, cognitive, emotional processes will correspond to the age of this alter personality. Cases have been described where behavior control in patients with this disorder was taken by child alter personalities under the age of one year. As a rule, in the personal system of these patients there are alter-personalities whose gender identity differs from the biological sex of the patient. That is why, in Western countries, those who apply for gender reassignment surgery must be screened for this disorder. One of the most problematic types of alters is the so-called persecutors. These alter personalities, as it were, accumulate the aggression of the individual and direct it against any one alter personality or a group of alter personalities. The reasons for this can be different: ranging from identification with the rapist to howtheir special life collisions of this patient. The hatred of the persecutors can be expressed in the desire to kill another alter personality. And this internal "homicide" outwardly may look like suicide attempts. The persecutors often create crisis, dangerous situations in the life of a patient with PML / RDI, and are also responsible for treatment interruptions.

In conclusion, I would like to note that almost all films about patients with IDI present a distorted - most often strongly - picture of this disorder. So, regarding the recently released film "Split", the international organization for the study of mental trauma and dissociative disorders even released a special release condemning the extremely negative image of a patient with IDI, created by the authors of this work. From the literature, I would recommend books by Van der Hart and his colleagues, Frank Putnam and Flora Schreiber.

I recently interviewed a young man with dissociative personality disorder. Once his consciousness "split" into four parts (there were prerequisites), with different characters, vision of the world, behavior and so on. To answer your question, very briefly ... imagine that other people occupy your head depending on the situation. I would like to answer more fully, but I have not yet rewritten the recording from the interview into text form. Therefore, I say that I remember so as not to lie too much.

If you are really interested, there is a book "SCHEMA THERAPY" by Jeffrey Young, Janet Klosko and Marjorie Weishaar. I don't know if it was published in Russian, but it is in English on the Internet. It describes a new approach to the very concept of personality disorders. I will briefly describe the essence: there is a segment with ends "A" and "B". At point "A" there is a reference person, without any psycho-problems, but existing, most likely, only in theory. Billy Milligan is at point "B". And along the very segment, between A and B, all of humanity is scattered. Someone is closer to Milligan, someone to a healthy theoretical person. People with BPD, according to this theory, are right in the middle.

P.S. In general, three subpersonalities live in all healthy people - "adult", "parent" and "child". But this is already a ghetto of theoretical psychiatry.

Split personality is a rare pathology. It is quite simple to imagine what is happening in your head:

Imagine that you are you. You are an 18 year old man, a straight Muslim. Love your mother, homeland and borscht. You have friends, hobbies and interests.

Then at one moment another person turns on, a woman of 55 years old, still a berry in her soul, a Buddhist and a hippie in her youth. And she has her own tastes and reactions.

Somehow on TV there was a series: Zaitsev +1 - this is an understandable example of a split personality.

This happens at a time when a person cannot experience too strong emotions, for example, violence or the loss of a loved one (death) at an early age. A protective mechanism turns on, as if this is not happening to him. And if you often cause such a reaction, then the second personality can become stronger as a separate one, which will subsequently show us such a picture as a split personality.