Recently, I saw 2 movies that spawned my thought process about the split-personality disorder. One is a hilarious Tamil movie called “Chandramukhi”. And the other is a more serious one called “Hide and Seek”. For those who haven’t watched movies centering on this concept, this is a disorder where independent personalities or ego-states exist, with only one personality controlling the body at any time. The disorder itself is highly debated in the psychology/psychiatry world.
I don’t doubt that the phenomenon exists. However, I argue that this is not a disorder. I believe that most “normal” human beings exhibit different personalities at different times. Given that people have varying emotions, and varying circumstances in their daily lives, it is entirely expected that they react differently to situations at different times. One day I am a happy camper cheerfully going about my business and lifting people’s moods. Another I am a grump who is totally annoyed at other people for making silly jokes. One day I am ready to take on the world with all its challenges, and on another day, I can only cower anxiously in the solitude of my home. I have noticed this in other people too.
People don’t react the same way to the same stimulus at different times. People’s behavior is a complex dependent variable affected by a multitude of tiny forces. So I conclude by saying that at some level, split-personality is the norm, rather than the exception. I wouldn't classify multiple personality as a disorder.
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3 comments:
Very interesting article... As far as I have read (purely academic), personality is defined as the stable physical and mental characteristics responsible for a person's identity. I was quite amazed to know that personality sets up in the first 6 months after birth based on a variety of socio-economic and cultural reasons. An individual's action can be analysed in the stacked order of personality, values, attitudes and behaviour. Behaviour being the top-level, which is fairly easy to control OR in other words, keeps changing. So, I think our day to day changes are more like behavioural glitches centered around a uniform trend line and the slope of the trend line remains constant. In multiple personality scenario, I think people assume a new identity, which means they have 2 different slopes. I dont believe in it, even after seeing real life footages on TV because you can never tell if people indeed have multiple personality disorder (MPD) OR they are faking it. I liked "Primal Fear" (Edward Norton and Richard Gere) which deals with MPD ...
As both of you, I am not fully convinced of this dis-order. But being my common-sense proved wrong by science more than few times, I am open to accept if I get more proof.
Anniyan took the MPD concept and sprinkled some songs and unbelivable matrix-like fights and made mockery of that disease.
Though it explained the disease well.
My personality changes depending on who , what , when , why am I talking or listening.But, still as long as you have control over it, I guess its OK. Thats norm...
Sometimes, I fake it too ..
Are we confusing personality with behaviour, attitude..etc
here ?
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