Donald Trump helps disprove myth that multiple personality is popular, culture-specific, diagnostic fad, mostly limited to United States of America.

There is a myth that multiple personality is a popular, culture-specific, diagnostic fad, mostly limited to the USA. Although the presence of multiple personality in other parts of the world has been addressed (1), the myth persists that multiple personality is popular in the USA.

If that were true, then multiple personality would be a common speculation about Donald Trump, but it is not.

In spite of the fact that Donald Trump has a history of using pseudonyms, speaking of himself in the third person, puzzling inconsistencies, marked changes in demeanor, lying, and frequently changing his hair color—which, taken together, do not prove, but certainly raise the possibility that he has multiple personality—very few people in the USA have seriously considered that diagnosis.

What is the status of multiple personality in the USA among psychiatrists and psychologists? Since 1980, it has been a full-fledged psychiatric diagnosis among the Dissociative Disorders in the official diagnostic manual (2). (It was a diagnosis prior to then, but listed as a subtype of hysterical neurosis. In 1980, “hysterical neurosis” and all other Freudian terms and theory were eliminated from the diagnostic manual.)

However, even though multiple personality is in the official diagnostic manual, if you look at psychiatry and psychology textbooks and training programs in the USA, most do not teach how to diagnose multiple personality (search “mental status exam” and “diagnostic criteria” in this blog).

In short, multiple personality, though accepted scientifically and found worldwide, is not popular with, or understood by, the public, most psychiatrists, and most psychologists, in the USA or anywhere else.

1. George F. Rhoades, Jr., PhD and Vedat Sar, MD. Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon. New York, The Haworth Press, 2005.

2. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition [DSM-5]. Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013.