Although much of what you will read of the descriptions of DID on the Web MD link are either accurate or close enough to not merit any objections, there are two points at which I strongly disagree.
Overall, the description reflects current understandings of DID by the professional field of psychiatry. It should be noted, though, that this is a relatively new diagnosis in the diagnostic manual for psychiatry, and is therefore being altered on a frequent basis. This becomes very evident if you read the various psychiatric “authorities”, professional journals, and textbooks. The fact of the matter is, DID has undergone major changes in definition and acceptance by various professions in psychiatry since it was first recognized as a valid diagnosis in the early 1980s (then recognized as Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD).
Much of what you will read if you click on the link to Web MD is accurate or close to accurate. There are, however, two glairing errors that I simply can’t overlook.
The first is that the splits between personalities are not total splits. This is a view currently held by some who call themselves professionals or specialist in the area of DID; but there are many others who strongly disagree.
I am not a professional, but the psychiatrist who diagnosed my DID is, and he would strongly disagree and back up his assertion with many documented facts. He started his specialization in MPD in Europe during the early 1970s, before it was even recognized as a valid diagnosis. He held the view that he brought to the task of my mental health healing all the psychiatric knowledge his profession afforded him, but God and I were the professionals on my specific case of MPD, and that gave us the right and responsibility to determine the specific path toward health and wholeness which would be best for the collective me to follow and the pace at which we needed to proceeded.
Over the course of years of working together, there have been many times when he encouraged us to interrupt him if he was leading us (or our therapy session) in a direction other than where we felt we needed to go at that time; and he was always quick to redirect his focus when we indicated the need. This is so extremely contrary to the attitudes and approach of the vast majority of psychiatrist, psychologist, and therapists we have encountered and/or had occasion to work with on a short-term basis since our diagnosis in the late 1980s.
The vast majority have decided what was in the best interest of their patients (and all DID patients), some of them extending their attitude of expertise to include what was best for the relationships and families of their DID patients. The result we witnessed was patients unable to cope with life and totally dependant on their mental health professional for basic life choices. It might have been healthy for the inflated egos of the professionals but it was obviously very bad for the patients.
When we didn’t readily comply with their view, some of these doctors have used their authority to intentionally do harm to us, and on two occasions it took a literal miracle to extricate us from the harm they devised. This wasn’t only my view and interpretation of the situations; it was also the view of their colleagues and the lawyers who had to get involved. If I sound rather emphatic on this point, that is the reason why.
The second point I strongly object to is the statement that DID can be treated with medications. The very idea is absurd.
Hallucinations can be treated with medications, but separate personalities are not hallucinations. As stated in the Web MD description of DID, individual personalities may suffer from other psychiatric disorders or illnesses. If that is the case, medications that treat the symptoms of those other diagnosis’ can be effective to treat them when they are present in a person with DID the same as they are effective to treat them in a person who doesn’t have DID. That is usually true.
However, it can get tricky, especially if you have a child personality taking a dose that is prescribed for an adult. We ran into serious trouble once when a child alter took an adult dose of a medication typically used for treating seizures. We actually lost consciousness while on the phone with a friend. She called the paramedics who rushed me to the hospital where my stomach was pumped out and we were placed on suicide precautions. The doctors refused to believe me when I insisted I had only taken the prescribed dose because all my vital signs indicated a significant overdose.