Few disorders are so shrouded by myth and distortion as Multiple
Personality Disorder (MPD), now known as Dissociative Identity
Disorder (DID). That so many people are under the impression that
the disorder, while a real one, is far more widespread than it actually
is no doubt stems from the treatment it has received in the media.
Those responsible for perpetrating the myth that this is a widespread
disorder or exaggerating the implications of the handful of cases that
have been documented do not only include writers of popular fiction
or movie makers, who might be expected to shun science in favor of
sensation, but also self-declared authorities, therapists of various
stripes, and researchers whose methodology is, to be polite, rather
questionable. This book is intended as a corrective, an attempt to set
the record straight, offering as it does an examination of the bestknown
cases from the nineteenth century on as well as a discussion of
how a few of these cases—notably Sybil—have been exploited to fuel
some disturbing social phenomena. Were cases of MPD/DID solely
the concern or the purview of psychologists and academics, or appropriated
from time to time by enterprising novelists or filmmakers, it
might not be necessary to revisit it now.