Victims of memories & allegations of sexual & ritual abuse:

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Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) &
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID):
All sides to the debate

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Quotations:

	"Down with skepticism, up with awareness." Label on a button at a MPD conference.
	"Every MPD patient in the country owes a personal debt of  gratitude to Buddy [Braun]. He's the first ever to get a unit set up for these people, and all the other units around the country follow the trail he has blazed." M. Keenan, New City article, 1995-JUN-22: "The Devil and Dr. Braun." 1
	"...students often ask me whether multiple personality disorder (MPD) really exists. I usually reply that the symptoms attributed to it are as genuine as hysterical paralysis and seizures." Dr. Paul McHugh
	A "creature of the consulting room which patients and therapists manufacture." Description of MPD by a member of the British False Memory Society.
	"I have this head shrinker and he says...[MPD is]...deliberately induced because the CIA is where they started inducing it when after they brought all the Nazis over from Germany to run [the] American Psychiatric Association....It is all mind control and all kinds of things to invent people with multiple personalities....  I believe the government has implanted some kind of a chip into my head where... [my thoughts are] monitored by Barbara Walters and these other women. And they take  all my ideas...I think [Oprah] sits with her finger on the switch to the chip....several times I wondered if I had multiple personality disorder. In fact, or if I was just from another planet."  Roseanne on the Larry King Show, 2001-AUG-16
	"One of the most extraordinary outbreaks of popular delusion in recent years was that which attached to the possibility of 'recovered memory' of sexual and satanic childhood abuse, and to an illness it supposedly caused, Multiple Personality Disorder. No medieval peasant praying to a household god for the recovery of his pig could have been more credulous than scores of psychiatrists, hosts of therapists and thousands of willing victims. The whole episode would have been funny had it not been so tragic." Theodore Dalrymple 2

MPD/DID:

Some material in this section may seem to read like a really bad work of fantasy-fiction. You might suspect that the author has dissociated from reality. However, we assure you that sincere, intelligent and caring people really do hold these beliefs. In the past -- prior to the mid 1990s -- many more did. They learned and taught them at seminars and conferences. Specialists used them during therapy and exorcisms. One result was many patients/clients who entered therapy with minor emotional problems became convinced that their minds have been fractured into many personalities. Many became emotionally disabled and unable to function as workers, spouses and parents. A few committed suicide.

Almost all counselors and therapists have now abandoned MPD and DID. As the effects of therapy wear off, many survivors of MPD are abandoning their multiplicity.

Terminology:

Many newscasters, commentators, etc. use the term "schizophrenia" in error when referring to a person appearing to have multiple personalities.

	"Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, incoherence and physical agitation. it is classified as a 'thought' disorder" 3 and often first appears during late teen years or the early 20's.
	"Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment." 4 DID was originally called "Multiple Personality Disorder" -- a term that is still in fairly common use.

This is a wild ride, so fasten your seat belts.

Full disclosure:

None of us at ReligiousTolerance.org believe that MPD/DID is a naturally occurring, psychological disorder. However, we have tried to describe accurately all viewpoints, including the current dominant belief.

This is one of the few locations on the Internet where you can see all belief systems described together and compared. Essentially all other websites define one viewpoint only.

MPD/DID topics discussed in this section:

	Overview << Please read this or the rest will not make sense
	More quotations. Points of view & implications of MPD/DID
	History and timeline of events
	About Sybil.  Evolution of beliefs.  The decline of MPD/DID
	Conclusions.  Personal experience.  Author's comments
	Sybil returned in 2008
	Five conflicting opinions: MPD/DID viewed as: A serious psychological disorder  A psychological fad artificially created by therapists A byproduct of demon possession,   An intentionally induced disorder A naturally occurring phenomenon
	Resources: Internet and other sources Bibliography of books and articles
	Recent events in the news (1996 to now)

Related essays on this Website:

	Mind control / programming by Satanic cults
	Demon possession and exorcism
	Recovered memory therapy
	Satanic ritual abuse

References:

1. M. Keenan, "The Devil and Dr. Braun," New City article, 1995-JUN-22:  Mentioned in FMS Foundation Newsletter, at: http://www.fmsfonline.org/fmsf99.n24.html 
    
2. Theodore Dalrymple, "Destructive delusions," Wall Street Journal, 2008-NOV-19. No longer online at the WSJ.
3. "Schizophrenia," About.com, 2006-OCT-21, at: http://bipolar.about.com/
4. "Dissociative Identity Disorder," Wikipedia, on 2009-JUL-11, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Related essays on this Website:

	Mind control / programming by Satanic cults
	Demon possession and exorcism
	Recovered memory therapy
	Satanic ritual abuse

Copyright © 1998 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 1998-JAN-11
Last updated on 2009-SEP-13
Author: B.A. Robinson

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