Gender identity disorder and dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder) are two different conditions that can cause significant psychological distress. Gender identity disorder involves feeling that one’s gender does not match their body, while dissociative identity disorder involves having multiple distinct personalities. Both conditions are recognized by the psychiatric community and may require therapy to manage.
Identity disorder can refer to very different conditions that can affect people. The two most commonly mentioned identity disorders are not at all similar to each other. One of them is gender identity disorder and the other is usually better known as multiple personality disorder, although it can also be called dissociative identity disorder.
When gender identity disorder is present, it may be noted early in childhood, which is common but not always, as a marked preference for all aspects of a lifestyle lived by the opposite gender. People may feel that they are in the wrong body and that they were meant to be in a body of the opposite gender. Some children manage to do this as children and don’t continue to feel this way as adults, while others may identify more strongly with opposing gender roles as adults. The psychic pain this can create is significant, and since choices such as sex reassignment surgery or transsexualism may be frowned upon in many cultures, the problem of declaring this feeling to family or friends may not only be embarrassing but could be life-threatening. the life. . The person may then try to hide these feelings for years, although some are now able to enlist family support to cross over.
There is discomfort among some intimately related to this condition in calling it an ailment. Many have argued that they call gender identity disorder something else. Others who have been open about this issue suggest that it is actually not the mind that is messy, but the body; once satisfactorily altered, the anxiety about belonging to the wrong gender can cease to exist. Many still need some form of therapy as they adjust to a new life and continue to recover from the psychic scars that rejection from society or loved ones has caused.
Dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a condition in which a person has several distinct, identifiable personalities that are separate from each other and may have little or no communication with each other. This is also a difficult condition, requiring therapy. The emphasis in therapy is on bringing out different personalities and making them communicate with each other. In other words, therapy hopes to mend fractured personalities in an effort to give the master personality fully conscious control of life at all times.
As with gender identity disorder, questions remain about the validity of MPD. Both conditions are viewed with skepticism by some or thought to be deliberately fueled by media acceptance and portrayal of these conditions. Medical authority disagrees with this interpretation and the psychiatric community accepts both disorders as very real and sets diagnostic criteria for them. These two conditions are listed in the diagnostic and statistical manuals.
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