Personal Identity and the Self Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Personal Identity and the Self - Essay Example In addition, the condition has been diagnosed to a significant number of patients found in psychiatric hospitals. MPD, also known as dissociative identity disorder, has many implications as to what it is to be a person at a particular time as well as over a period of time. This essay will seek to discuss these implications, with special reference to â€Å"Kim Noble: The Woman with 100 Personalities† by Amanda Mitchison. Causes dissociative identity disorder One of the key aspects of MPD is that medical professionals have not identified a specific cause of this condition. According to Psychological Theory, MPD can be traced to the trauma that was experienced during the childhood. For example, in the case of Kim Nobles, a woman with 100 personalities, the victim (Kim) experienced the unhappy marriage of her parents consequently being under the care of local acquaintances and friends. This indicates that she did not enjoy the parental love that is vital for the physical and psych ological growth of every child. In addition, Kim experienced extreme and repeated abuse (Amanda 2). As a result of this experience, she was largely traumatized and her personality was fragmented into separate identities. Just like other mental disorder, the possibility of the occurrence of MPD is high if the family has the history of the disorder. However, if a family member experiences the condition it does not imply that all other generation will suffer from MPD. According to Roxanne 28, depersonalization is also a major cause of Mental Identity Disorder. This is a condition that makes a person to have no control over a situation. Key aspects that victims experience include the view of the world as less real and lack of importance for living. Individuals who undergo severe trauma or prolonged stress have high chance of experiencing a chronic depersonalization. Additionally, individuals suffering from MPD feel like more than one person. This is based on the large number of personal ities that control them. For example, in the case of Kim, when there is a switch of personality and Patricia emerges, she does not remember what was happening in her absence. In the same way, when Patricia is asked about her sex life, she strongly declines of having any relationship but in the real sense Kim had a baby girl in 1997 (Amanda 3). Symptoms of dissociative identity disorder As mentioned earlier, a person suffering from MPD can experience large number of personalities that may range from two to hundreds. It is essential to note that half of the reported cases of MPD indicate that most of the victims possessed 10 or fewer personalities. The personalities that affect the self of a person can take their own postures. For example, they can be depicted through the change of gestures, change on the mode of talking and hairstyles as well as mode of dressing. The process through which an individual personality reveals itself and takes control of the person’s behavior is re ferred to as switching. Being triggered by the events surrounding the patients, switching can make the victim to change his or her behaviors in seconds. However, Leslie 36 argues that the changes can take hours or days. The section below discusses major symptoms that make us identify MPD among the people we are living with. One major symptom is the lapse of memory. For example, a