Symptoms of dissociative identity disorder:

Several symptoms are found in dissociative identity disorder such as frequent gaps found in memories of personal history, including places, people and events for both recent and distant past. Repeated dissociation may lead to mental stress, which may take the identity of  their own.

• Symptoms of depression, passivity, dependence, anxiety and guilt may also be present.
• Visual or auditory hallucinatiovuns may occur.
• Aggressive or self-destructive behavior may take place.
• Severe headaches or other pains
• Time distortions, time lapses and amnesia. The patient may feel gaps in memory for long time and in some cases the entire childhood.

The major dissociative symptoms experienced by DID patients are depersonalization, amnesia, derealization and identity disturbances.

• Depersonalization is a dissociative symptom where in the patient feels that his/her body is unreal, is dissolving or is changing.
• Deralization is a symptom in which the patient perceives the external environment to be unreal. They feel that the wall, Buildings is changing shape, size, and color. They may also fail to recognize relatives or close friends.
• Identity disturbances are such a symptom where the patient suffering from DID have a main personality that psychiatrists refer to as the “host”. This is usually not the original identity, but rather one developed in response to childhood trauma.

Diagnosis

A symptom gets diminished spontaneously, but dissociative identity disorder does not resolve that easily. Patients can be divided into groups based on their symptoms.

1. Symptoms are mostly posttraumatic and dissociative. These patients generally recover completely and function well with the treatment.
2. Dissociative symptoms are combined with the major symptoms of other disorder such as mood disorders, personality, eating, and substance abuse disorders. These patients recover much slowly and so treatment for multiple personality disorder may be less successful.
3. Patients not only have severe symptoms because of coexisting mental disorders but may also remain deeply and emotionally attached to their abusers. Treating these type of patient can be challenging

Treatment:

Treatment for dissociative identity disorder consists of psychotherapy with hypnosis.

The therapist seeks to make the contact with as many alters as possible and tries to understand their role and functions in the patient’s life. The goal here is to integrate the personalities into a single personality. However, integration of personalities is not always possible through hypnosis.

Psychotherapy is the best treatment for the individuals suffering form dissociative identity disorder, as it emphasizes the integration of various personality states into one unified personality.

• The primary focus is to help patients to control their symptoms. And to deal with the emotions, flashbacks, suicidal impulses. The patient should be coached on how to intervene long before anxiety rises to a critical level.
• Control is he major problem, and by learning new ways to control their symptoms,  patients no longer view themselves as victims of past.

Some patients benefit from hospitalization, during which continuous monitoring are provided as painful memories are addressed. Modified exposure techniques can be used to treat traumatic memories.