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Has it ever been proven, or is there a consensus among any body of legitimate scientist (e.g. APA, NIHM, or another) that multiple personality disorder actually exists what are each sides points? And those that believe it to be true, what is the standard treatment?

Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities (known as alters or parts), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.

In the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems the name for this diagnosis is multiple personality disorder. In both systems of terminology, the diagnosis requires that at least two personalities (one may be the host) routinely take control of the individual's behavior with an associated memory loss that goes beyond normal forgetfulness; in addition, symptoms cannot be the temporary effects of drug use or a general medical condition

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    The Wikipedia article on this topic pretty clearly answers this question: It is diagnosed in "in approximately 1% of dissociative cases," however there is much controversy over the legitimacy of the diagnosis. I wonder if your question needs to be made more specific.
    – Flimzy
    Oct 30, 2011 at 4:48
  • how can I make it more specific flimzy feel free to edit to make more specific Oct 30, 2011 at 6:08
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    I guess I'm wondering what kind of answer you're looking for that Wikipedia doesn't already provide. Clearly MPD/DID as a "diagnosable phenomenon" exists, as it has been diagnosed before. If your question is more "Is there a consensus?" the answer seems to be no, in the general sense, although there probably are clearly subsets of doctors who would say it does exist as a real condition... IOW, your question as worded could be legitimately answered as "Yes, absolutely!" or as "No, absolutely not!" depending on how the answer slices up the statistical pie.
    – Flimzy
    Oct 30, 2011 at 6:10
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    @ Flimzy: basically every question here can be answered by reading Wikipedia or other sources (Thats how we answer them after all!) However, (1) it doesn't mean that questions cannot be asked here; (2) Wikipedia is not a reliable source for the purposes of skepticism and it's fine that OP didn't rely on it.
    – user288
    Oct 30, 2011 at 8:08
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    I note that this is a topical question, given the most famous case of Multiple Personality Disorder, "Sybil" (Shirley Mason) has recently been the subject of a biography. The biographer claims that Mason admitted to being a fake. Source
    – Oddthinking
    Oct 30, 2011 at 11:29

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