Dissociative Identity Disorder Case Study

Introduction
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a rare and strange disorder of the mind that causes split personalities and affects anywhere from up to .01 to 1 percent of the population. It changes the life of those who have it, leaving them to question what is real and what is not.
Walking on the edge of life, never knowing when you might appear in a place you know nothing about…voices…confusion, incongruent feelings…this is what it’s like to be a multiple (CASE 11-9B “JUDY”)4

The brain, complex and complicated, has its limits and traumatic experiences can ruin everything. It recedes back into its fantasy world to protect and shelter the person, to ease the pain of loss. The problems and symptoms this presents are varied and still, leaves

About a third of people feel as if they are watching themselves, and experts think that around 7% of the population is undiagnosed(1). While most cases are presumed to be legitimate, because of the media coverage surrounding it, often times it is over-used as a true diagnosis for other more common disorders (e.g. schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, etc.). One of the more famous cases is that of Shirley Mason, born January 25, 1923(5). According to her own claims, she suffered severe abuse at the hands of her mother. Starting in 1965 she started psychiatric help. Shortly after seeing her psychiatrist, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the personalities started to emerge and she became the most documented case of DID to date. Recently the case has come under investigation for its authenticity, many believing that Shirley was a mentally ill woman who adored her psychiatrist. Shirley claimed herself that she had made all of this up in a letter to Dr. Wilbur, who promptly told her that it was her mind telling her that she was not sick. In total, 16 personalities emerged. While the television show made off of the highly successful book written off of her case, Sybil, shows her living happily ever after, in real life she got addicted to barbiturates and died of breast cancer on February 26,