mental health disorders
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder
A doctor's evaluation, based on specific diagnostic criteria from theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) Doctors diagnose dissociative identity disorder based on the person's history and symptoms: People have two or more identities, and their sense of being themselves and of being able to act as themselves is disrupted. They have gaps in their memory for everyday events, important personal information, and traumatic events—information that would not typically be forgotten. They are very distressed by their symptoms, or their symptoms make them unable to function in social situations or at work. Doctors conduct a thorough psychiatric interview and use special questionnaires developed to help identify dissociative identity disorder and to rule out other mental health disorders. A physical examination and laboratory tests may be needed to determine whether people have a medical disorder that would explain certain symptoms. Interviews may need to be long and involve careful use of hypnosis or a sedative given intravenously to relax the person (a medication-facilitated interview). People may also be asked to keep a journal between doctor's visits. These measures may allow doctors to encounter other identities or make the person more likely to reveal information about a forgotten period of time. Doctors may also attempt to directly contact other identities by asking to speak to the part of the mind involved in behaviors that people cannot remember or that seem to be done by someone else. Doctors can usually distinguish dissociative identity disorder from malingering (faking physical or psychologic symptoms to obtain a benefit). Malingerers do the following: Tend to overreport well-known symptoms of the disorder and underreport others Tend to create stereotypical alternate identities Usually seem to enjoy the idea of having the disorder (people with dissociative identity disorder often try to hide it) If doctors suspect that the disorder is faked, doctors can also cross-check information from several sources to check for inconsistencies that rule out dissociative identity disorder. 