Dissociative Identity Disorder in Split

This assignment analyzes the depiction of dissociative identity disorder (DID) in the 2016 film *Split* directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It explores the film's portrayal of DID, evaluating its accuracy and potential influence on public understanding of this complex mental health condition. The analysis delves into how the film portrays the symptoms, experiences, and challenges associated with DID, considering both its strengths and limitations in representing the reality of living with this disorder.

1Running head: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

2DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
Dissociative identity disorder also known as multiple personality disorder is a
condition wherein the identity of a person is divided into two or more personalities that are
distinctively present (Dorahy et al, 2014). The people who suffer from this mental illness are
generally the targets of severe bullying and abuse. The following essay deals with the
portrayal of dissociative identity disorder in the movie Split. The essay proceeds to discuss
the issues presented by the illness worldwide as well as the concerned country. It also
discusses the socio-cultural impacts of the disease on the individual suffering from the
condition as well as their families and their workplaces. The essay also attempts to find out
some ways of treating and managing the illness. The essay concludes with the
recommendations towards the clients on the ways to manage the mental condition.
The movie Split deals with the struggle of a mentally unstable serial killer, Kevin. The
movie was considered to be a sequel to the movie Unbreakable which was also written,
directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan (Pulver, 2017). The movie was first premiered
on the 26th of September, 2016 at the Fantastic Fest. It was released on the 20th of January,
2017 under the banner of the famous Universal Pictures. The movie received accolades and
had also been labelled by a section of the critics for marking the comeback of Shyamalan.
The movie had also received high amounts of criticism for the stigmatised portrayal of the
sensitive issue of mental health. The director, M. Night Shyamalan, portrays the emergence
of horror from the mental condition of dissociative personal disorder or DID. The movie talks
about the central character Kevin. The psychological horror-thriller deals with the 23
different types of personalities that exist in the same person (Www.youtube.com, 2017). The
person is shown to have kidnapped three girls who are in their teenage years. They had been
imprisoned in an underground facility and had been kept isolated from the outer world. The
three girls were meant to serve as offerings to the dark powers.

3DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
The mental illness that is described in the movie is commonly known as Dissociative
identity disorder or DID. In the storyline of the movie is found that the protagonist suffers
from the condition. The victims of Kevin learn about this character trait of the person only
after their kidnapping an imprisonment. The doctor who had been dealing with the case of
Kevin had reported to have identified 23 different personalities within the same person.
According to the doctor, Dr. Fletcher the different personalities can be viewed as sitting in
chairs in a room inside the mind of Kevin. They wait for their turns in order to take control
over the body of Kevin. The major dominating personality is that of Barry and this is the
persona that is found deciding on which personality should be taking control of the physical
attributes of Kevin at a given point of time. The doctor identifies that these personalities had
risen to power in order to help the protagonist to cope up with the abuses that were inflicted
upon him during his childhood by his mother who suffered from the obsessive-compulsive
disorderly state of mind.
The dissociative identity disorder is mainly characterized by two or more split or
distinct personalities of the same person (Paris, 2012). These personalities continuously
control the behaviour of the person. As a result, the patients who suffer from this disorder are
unable to remember any of the personal information. This forgetfulness is not similar to the
simple forgetfulness that people face in their daily lives (Staniloiu & Markowitsch, 2014).
The person may experience memory variations that are highly distinct and fluctuate with the
split personalities that are resident within the mind of the concerned person. The different
personalities of the person may belong to different ages, racial divisions and even may have
different genders. All these personalities may have different behavioural patterns like
gestures, postures and the way of speech even. The identities may be imaginary people or
even animals. The different identities reveal themselves and take control over the thoughts
and behaviours of the concerned individual. This process is known a s switching and may

4DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
take days, minutes or even seconds to take place. The person suffering from dissociative
identity disorder may face a number of symptoms such as tendencies towards committing
suicide, symptoms inclusive of visual and auditory hallucinations that are similar to
psychotics, feelings of depression and anxiety, disorders of sleep and eating, drug and alcohol
abuse (Ross, Ferrell & Schroeder, 2014).
Dissociative identity disorder had been considered to be a rare phenomenon in the
earlier days. However, in the modern times, the disorder is considered to be a more
commonplace occurrence than it was earlier. This is due to the fact that the causes that ensure
the conditions of the disorder. The number of reported incidents of childhood abuses have
seen a rapid increase in the recent times as compared to the number of reported cases in the
past. People who are diagnosed with the dissociative identity disorder may be loving towards
their children. The chronic defensive nature of the dissociation identity disorder may cause
serious malfunctions in the spheres of society, family, work, and other day-to-day activities.
The repetition in the dissociations may lead to a series of separate mental states or entities.
The trauma survivor takes these identities to be his own identity at the given point of time
(Markowitsch & Staniloiu, 2012). The victim keeps switching between these identities from
time to time. The parent who has grown up in an abusive environment may be display the
characteristics of the violence he has experienced during his growing years from his own
parents.
It may also be that this disorder of the parent comes to the forefront as the child grows
up to attain the age when the parent was traumatised. The appearance, age and behaviours of
the child may serve as a trigger to the parent, thereby reminding him of the abuse he had
faced during his childhood days (Www.sidran.org, 2017). The parent may subconsciously act
in a way to the that may prove to be non-nurturing for the child. The alternative personalities
of the person are manifestations of the same person and not separate persons. The children

5DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
may be abused or deliberately hurt by the parents. The parent who has been brought up in the
abusive environments may under the influence of these identities wrongly perceive their kids
to be someone else thus treat them with hostility. There may also be incidents wherein an
alternate aggressive identity turns hostile towards the child. This behavioural tendencies may
also lead to development of the similar conditions in the child. In the places of work too, the
people suffering from dissociative identity disorder may lead to the suffering of the co-
workers of the concerned person.
The most common methods for the nursing of dissociative identity disorder include
hypnosis, psychotherapy, family and group therapy and the cognitive behavioural therapy
(Krakauer, 2013). Identity confusion, amnesia, alteration of identity, flashbacks, headaches,
nightmares, emotional instability are the several symptoms that a patient of dissociative
identity disorder may portray (Gentile, Dillon & Gillig, 2013). The patients may also face
certain somatic conditions that may include genitourinary and gastrointestinal disturbances.
Family and group therapy requires the involvement of the family of the patient suffering from
the condition in order to bring about change in the condition of the patient. This therauptic
process includes the identification of the situation that the victim is facing and passing on the
same towards their family and closed ones. The rationale behind this theory rests in the fact
that the first care givers in case of mental illnesses are the family members. The family
members are the ones who provide the victim with the primary support. Cognitive
behavioural therapy aims to change the dysfunctional feelings, thinking patterns and
behaviours of the person suffering from the condition (Brand et al, 2012. The common
interventions of this therapy include the identification of the situations that are generally
avoided and the identification of and the challenging of the negative thought-processes
(Chlebowski & Gregory, 2012). The patients are fully informed of their conditions and only
then is the treatment started.

6DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
There are certain issues that a person might face while undergoing the recommended
treatment for the mental illness. The individual outpatient psychotherapy is considered to be
one of the primary modalities for the dissociative personality disorders. The characteristics
and abilities of the patient, the clinician’s preferences as well as the external factors such as
availability of the skilled therapists, insurances and other similar financial resources pose to
be hindrances in the way of the treatment that needs to be meted out to the patients. In
conclusion to the above discussion, some recommendations might be put forward in order to
help the patients suffering from the mental condition. The patients must be dealt with very
carefully so as to help in reduction of the split in their mental conditions. They should be
treated with regular counselling and hypnosis sessions so as to help them overcome the
trauma that may have been deep-rooted in their memories. The victims must be helped to free
themselves from the clutches of the trauma that they might have been facing which may have
resulted in the mental illness of dissociative identity disorder in them.

7DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
References
Brand, B. L., Myrick, A. C., Loewenstein, R. J., Classen, C. C., Lanius, R., McNary,
S. W., ... & Putnam, F. W. (2012). A survey of practices and recommended
treatment interventions among expert therapists treating patients with
dissociative identity disorder and dissociative disorder not otherwise
specified. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and
Policy, 4(5), 490.
Chlebowski, S. M., & Gregory, R. J. (2012). Three cases of dissociative identity
disorder and co-occurring borderline personality disorder treated with dynamic
deconstructive psychotherapy. American journal of psychotherapy, 66(2), 165-
180.
Dorahy, M. J., Brand, B. L., Şar, V., Krüger, C., Stavropoulos, P., Martínez-Taboas,
A., ... & Middleton, W. (2014). Dissociative identity disorder: an empirical
overview. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(5), 402-417.
Gentile, J. P., Dillon, K. S., & Gillig, P. M. (2013). Psychotherapy and
pharmacotherapy for patients with dissociative identity disorder. Innovations
in clinical neuroscience, 10(2), 22.
Krakauer, S. Y. (2013). Treating dissociative identity disorder: The power of the
collective heart. Routledge.
Markowitsch, H. J., & Staniloiu, A. (2012). Amnesic disorders. The
Lancet, 380(9851), 1429-1440.

8DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER IN SPLIT 2016
Paris, J. (2012). The rise and fall of dissociative identity disorder. The Journal of
nervous and mental disease, 200(12), 1076-1079.
Pulver, A. (2017). M Night Shyamalan announces sequel to Unbreakable and Split in
same film. the Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/27/m-night-shyamalan-
unbreakable-sequel-split
Ross, C. A., Ferrell, L., & Schroeder, E. (2014). Co-occurrence of dissociative
identity disorder and borderline personality disorder. Journal of Trauma &
Dissociation, 15(1), 79-90.
Staniloiu, A., & Markowitsch, H. J. (2014). Dissociative amnesia. The Lancet
Psychiatry, 1(3), 226-241.
Www.sidran.org. (2017). The Effects of DID on Children of Trauma Survivors |
Sidran.org. Sidran.org. Retrieved 1 November 2017, from
https://www.sidran.org/resources/for-survivors-and-loved-ones/the-effects-of-
did-on-children-of-trauma-survivors/
Www.youtube.com. (2017). Split Official Trailer 1 (2017) - M. Night Shyamalan
Movie. YouTube. Retrieved 1 November 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TouqfIsiI