The X-FilesDissociative Identity Disorder

Psychological Basis

Dissociative Identity DisorderFalls under the category of Dissociative

Disorders which are when thoughts and feelings are separated from your consciousness

Occurs when there are two or more personalities within one person’s body

Usually caused by stressPersonalities are usually very differentUsed to be referred to as multiple personality

disorderName was changed because in almost all

cases there are just two distinct personalities

Media

The X-FilesFox Mulder (the believer) and Dana Scully

(the skeptic) are two FBI agentsThey investigate strange and unusual

phenomenaIn Season 4 Episode 5 they are investigating

a religious cult

Connection

During the investigation, Mulder and Scully are interrogating a member of the cult named Melissa

After asking some questions about child abuse at the cult, Melissa’s tone and mannerisms completely change

She now says her name is Sydney, and Scully assumes she is suffering from multiple personalities

Their supervisor, Skinner, is skeptical. He wonders if she is just faking it to get out of questioning. He says “It’s my understanding that multiple personalities are rare”.

Scully states, “They’re extremely rare. In fact, many in the psychiatric community do not believe that dissociative identity disorder exists”.

Mulder states, “What we witnessed meets the criteria established in the DSM IV. The presence of two or more distinct personality states that would take control over behavior, including the protector identity Sydney. The inability to recall important personal information, she couldn't recall her own home town. Transitions from one personality state to another are usually a matter of seconds and are often caused by psycho-social stress, Sydney appeared when we mentioned that children had been abused.”

Scully responds, “I believe the disorder exists, but in this case under these circumstances I would have to know more.”

Conclusion/Validity

Because this is the X-Files, it turns out Melissa was not suffering from dissociative identity disorder (in the context of the show).

To avoid spoiling the episode and for the sake of the assignment we will look at how it was portrayed, which led to the initial speculation that it was dissociative identity disorder.

Melissa displayed two very different personalities, each had a different tone of voice as well as facial expressions

The change between personalities occurred during a very stressful situation, she was being interrogated about child abuse

Scully mentions the disorder itself is extremely rare

Scully specifically uses the proper term “Dissociative Identity Disorder”

All of these match the facts about the disorder that we learned about in Lecture Ten

In addition, Mulder specifically references the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).

The latest version of the manual is V, but when this episode aired (1996), version IV was the latest version.

All in all the episode did a good job of portraying someone with multiple personality disorder (even though in the end, in the context of the show something else was going on)

References (other than lecture)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_

Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_DisordersContains information on the different versions

of the document and when they were releasedhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/episode

s?season=4&ref_=tt_eps_sn_4Contains airdate of the episode