Multiple Personality: How do you know whether a person with an opinion about it knows what they are talking about? What credentials are relevant?

This is a subject that I discuss in the blog every so often, because uninformed opinions about multiple personality are still so common.

No Credentials, Acknowledged

Since multiple personality is a psychological condition, people who are not psychologists (PhD), psychiatrists (MD), or in a related mental health discipline, have no relevant formal credentials; for example, Ian Hacking (philosopher) and Debbie Nathan (journalist/writer). No matter how many facts they may seem to have, they may have never met anyone who has multiple personality, and they certainly have never made the diagnosis and worked with people who have multiple personality for an extensive period of time.

Misrepresentation of Credentials

I know of one popular book purporting to debunk multiple personality—this book prompted this post—whose page on the author’s credentials misrepresents them. From reading what it says, anyone would think that the author is a psychologist, but that is not true. Moreover, the blurbs on the back cover by real psychiatrists and psychologists make them, not to mention the publisher, complicit in the misrepresentation. And the author may never have even met anyone who has multiple personality, and certainly has never made the diagnosis and worked with people who have it for an extensive period of time.

Credentials, But No Relevant Expertise

If you wanted an opinion about cardiac surgery, would you ask a neurosurgeon? Of course not. Everyone knows that surgeons have different areas of expertise. The same is true in psychology and psychiatry. Many psychologists and psychiatrists have rarely or never diagnosed multiple personality, and have not worked with people who have it for an extensive period of time. This lack of relevant expertise probably includes the psychiatrists and psychologists who wrote the blurbs on the back cover of the above-mentioned book.

Nonacademic Credentials

The basic credential for having a worthwhile opinion about multiple personality is knowing people who have had multiple personality, and knowing them well for an extensive period of time. So if you, a family member, or a friend have had multiple personality, you may have a more worthwhile opinion about it than many psychiatrists and psychologists.

If you have not known people with multiple personality, you might still have a worthwhile opinion about it if you read this blog, because I am a psychiatrist who has known people with multiple personality for an extensive period of time.

Multiple Personality is Observable

Multiple personality is not a psychoanalytic interpretation. Psychiatric diagnosis abandoned psychoanalytic interpretations in 1980 with the third edition of the diagnostic manual, DSM-3. Since then, diagnosis has been based on observable signs and symptoms. These diagnostic criteria, in the latest edition of the manual, DSM-5, were quoted in a recent post. Multiple personality, with its relatively unique symptoms, is probably misdiagnosed less frequently than most other conditions.

In short, multiple personality is observable, so don’t be fooled by the opinions of people who have not observed it, up close, for an extensive period of time.