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SPLIT ISN’T MULTIPLE

Because the word schizophrenia means “split mind,” people often confuse that disorder with a different one. The other illness is dissociative identity disorder (DID). It used to be called “multiple personality disorder.” People with DID have two or more personalities inside them. These personalities are called alters . One person can have as many as 100 different alters, although having about 10 is more common. Different alters don’t just have different names. They are completely different people. Amazingly, some alters have different allergies or need different eyeglasses, even though the person’s body stays the same. We do not know exactly what causes DID. Sometimes the disorder is caused by a very traumatic experience, but not always. People who make films and television programs like to show people with DID because they seem “strange” to outsiders. But in truth, the disorder is very, very rare. As few as one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans may have it. DID has no connection to schizophrenia. The “split” in schizophrenia refers to the split between the person’s perceptions and the real world. Having schizophrenia might make you a sadder person or an angrier person, but it does not make you a different person.

praecox.” He thought the symptoms came from a gradual decline of the brain. In the early 1900s, Dr. Eugen Bleuler agreed with some of Kraepelin’s ideas but disagreed with others. Where Kraeplin saw a decline, Bleuler saw a break from reality. He used the Greek words skhizein (split) and phren (mind) to create the term we use today. Ever since Bleuler named the disorder, doctors have been trying to figure out why it occurs. There is probably no single