DSM-5 Says Multiple Personality (Dissociative Identity) is More Common Than Schizophrenia

American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013.

Prevalence (in the general population)

Schizophrenia: 0.3%—0.7%

Dissociative Identity Disorder: 1.5%

Multiple personality is two to five times as common as schizophrenia.

So why is it, then, that schizophrenia is a common diagnosis by most psychiatrists, but that most psychiatrists (and other mental health professionals) go through their whole professional lives without ever diagnosing multiple personality, leading most psychiatrists (and others) to think that multiple personality is rare, and leading some psychiatrists (and others), including some of the most eminent, to think that multiple personality is “bunk”?

I answered that question in the first post of this blog (June 2013). In short, multiple personality is a condition that is designed to keep secrets, and to keep itself secret—it becomes obvious only after diagnosis, when the cat is out of the bag, so to speak—and most mental health professionals have never been taught how to make the diagnosis.