Rebranding: Why did the DSM change “multiple personality disorder” to “dissociative identity disorder,” since the condition itself was unchanged?

The name was changed in the psychiatric diagnostic manual, the DSM, in 1994. The reason that this blog uses the older term, “multiple personality,” is that it is still the most widely understood term among the general public. Each term has its advantages and disadvantages.

“Multiple Personality” Disadvantages

Back in 1994, the old name had become entangled in the controversies over “repressed memory” and “satanic ritual abuse.” Some misguided therapists had been looking for hidden memories of child abuse as an explanation for everything. And some gullible people thought that there was a massive hidden conspiracy of baby-killing satanists.

Linguistically, “multiple personality” is an oxymoron. By definition, a person can have only one personality.

“Multiple personality” makes some people think that there is alleged to be more than one person, or that one person is actually “possessed” by another person or demon. The term never meant any such thing, but some people misread it that way.

“Multiple personality” suggests something dramatic and histrionic to many people, which is misleading. People with multiple personality usually don’t, overtly, look like they have multiple personality. The regular or host personality may not even know that there are other personalities, per se. And the alternate personalities prefer to remain incognito. This is not to say that the dramatics seen in movies is a myth. It can be that dramatic or even more so, but it is usually not.

“Multiple Personality” Advantages

When identities come out, they may behave so differently from each other that they look and seem like they are actually different people. The identities, themselves, believe that they are different people. And observers may have the uncanny experience that it is like meeting different people. The term “multiple personality” conveys this experience.

“Multiple personality” provides an easy way to refer to people who have multiple personality. A person with multiple personality is referred to as “a multiple.”

And as previously mentioned, after all these years (since 1994), the term is still more widely understood among the general public than is “dissociative identity.”

“Dissociative Identity”

This term was conceived to avoid the disadvantages noted above for “multiple personality.” It conveys the idea that the person is divided, not multiplied. The person’s personality is the sum total and combination of all the identities put together. “Dissociative identity” is conceptually correct, but it has never really caught on, because it does not convey the experience in the way “multiple personality” does.

“Multiple Identity”

This is the term that I would prefer, which is why I have called my literary theory, “Multiple Identity Literary Theory” (search it in the blog).