MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER


Meaning of MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER in English

or dissociative identity disorder

Rare condition in which two or more independent and distinct personality systems develop in the same individual.

Each personality may alternately inhabit the person's conscious awareness to the exclusion of the others, but one is usually dominant. The various personalities typically differ from one another in outlook, temperament, and body language and give themselves different first names. The condition is generally viewed as resulting from dissociative mental processes

that is, the splitting off from conscious awareness and control of thoughts, feelings, memories, and other mental components in response to situations that are painful, disturbing, or somehow unacceptable to the person experiencing them. Treatment is aimed at integrating the disparate personalities back into a single and unified personality.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.      Краткая энциклопедия Британика.