“Sybil” shows DSM-5 was written to make the diagnosis of multiple personality less likely

In Sybil (1), the nonfiction bestseller about a woman with multiple personality, the first thing the reader sees is NOT Sybil’s alternate personalities, but her problem with memory gaps. And in real life, that is the most common order in which the symptoms come to the clinician's attention: 1. Memory gaps, 2. Multiple personalities.

In contrast, in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, DSM-5, the Diagnostic Criteria for multiple personality are listed in the reverse order: A. Multiple Personalities, B. Memory Gaps (2, p. 292). Whereas, to repeat, in real life, as in “Sybil,” the clinician usually becomes aware of the alternate personalities only later, when looking to see why the person has a long history of memory gaps.

Of course, once the alternate personalities realize that their cover has been blown, and that hiding has become futile, they do start to look like multiple personalities. So, to further obscure the diagnosis, DSM-5 changed the name from “multiple personality disorder” to “dissociative identity disorder” (2).

Comment: The authors of DSM-5 rationalized what they did, but probably knew better.

1. Flora Rheta Schreiber. Sybil. New York, Grand Central Publishing, 1973/2009.

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