multiple personality disorder

When someone has multiple personalities that they switch between at different times. Characterized by each personality not having full accesss to the memories of the others. Also, each personality often has totally different mannerisms, penmanship, and even voice patterns.

Often popularily called schizophrenia, though that disorder has nothing to do with this one.

Multiple Personality Disorder is not a form of schizophrenia, or vice versa, as many people seem to believe. Schizophrenia is detachment from reality, while MPD is the condition of having at least two very real personalities.

As MPD is a type of Dissociative Disorder. Often a personality may be unaware of the other(s) it shares a body with, although in some cases the personalities do talk to each other. MPD may sometimes accompanied by intense headaches and extrasensory experiences.

Nearly all sufferers of MPD have been abused, either sexually of physically, as children.

The first documented case of multiple-personality disorder, as it was called at the time, is the movie "The Three Faces of Eve." It portrayed one of the first known cases of multiple-personality in America: a lady who had three different personalities. However, since that time, the name of the disorder has been changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder. For that reason, more scientific and a greater quantity of information can be found at that node.