Do schizophrenics really have multiple personalities?

With approximately 1% of the population affected by schizophrenia, this often poorly understood disease is prone to prejudice and preconceived ideas. Because of the hallucinations and the discrepancy with the entourage, one can quickly see a split personality which can frighten the entourage.

Confusion with dissociative identity disorder

In 25 to 50 percent of those diagnosed with “split personality,” also known as dissociative identity disorder, the initial diagnosis was that of schizophrenia. In reality this confusion comes from certain common symptoms like auditory hallucinations.

Only, in the majority of dissociative identity disorder, the voices come from inside, while in schizophrenics the voices they hear come from the outside. Knowing how to make this distinction is very important for diagnosis.

Different causes

In general, the splitting of the personality is a pathological process which affects approximately 3% of the population and which comes almost exclusively from psychotrauma, generally occurring during a prolonged period during childhood. It would be a defense for these people that they would have created to detach themselves from repeated violence.

In the case of schizophrenia, symptoms generally appear in young adults, and their mechanism has not yet been clearly elucidated.

Different care

In the case of a split personality, the symptoms can evolve constantly, or punctual depending on the case. This is not the case with schizophrenia which is a disease considered to be chronic.

The care will be different. While the split personality responds well to psychotherapy, sometimes accompanied by treatment, the latter is the heart of therapy in schizophrenics, of course in addition to psychotherapy and social and educational measures.

Find out more: “Schizophrenia: Recognize it and treat it” by Nicolas Franck, Odile Jacob editions.

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