Split Personality Disorder Test

Split personality disorder has become one of the most talked about mental illnesses in the field of psychiatry, and a large part of the credit for this goes to the weird nature of this disorder wherein a person tends to manifest two or more distinct personalities in him. Even though this disorder is more often referred to as split personality disorder, this is just a colloquial term for it. Initially, split personality disorder was referred to as 'multiple personality disorder', a term which was eventually replaced by dissociative identity disorder (DID). Irrespective of what it is referred to as, there is no doubt that this mental condition is very dangerous, and it can prompt the person to do something which he might never do in a proper frame of mind. Before we move on to split personality disorder tests which are widely used for its diagnosis, let's have a brief look at its causes and symptoms.

Split Personality Disorder: Causes and Symptoms

A person develops the split personality disorder in response to some traumatic incidents of the past which are deep rooted in his subconscious mind. Among the various split personality disorder causes, two of the most prominent causes include traumatic past and lack of attention in the childhood. When we say traumatic past, it refers to physical as well as psychological trauma that the person is subjected to. In most of the cases of split personality disorder, the patient reports about exploitation in some or the other form by a known person. As far as split personality disorder symptoms are concerned, the most prominent one of the fact that the person tends to demonstrate two contrasting personalities at two different points of time. You are bound to notice stark differences in the attitude and mannerism of the person suffering from this psychological disorder. Switching, i.e. the process in which a person changes from one personality to another, may at times occur as rarely as once in a year or occur for a couple of times in a single day itself.

Split Personality Disorder Test

Even as the confusion about split personality disorder being an authentic disorder or not continues to prevail, it does find a place in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) compiled by the American Psychiatric Association. According to the DSM, a psychiatrist or psychologist can perform the diagnosis by resorting to specially designed interviews and personality assessment tools. These tests generally contain a stipulated number of questions which are related to the day-to-day experiences of the individual. As a part of the prerequisites for a multiple personality disorder test, one has to ensure that the person taking these tests is in an absolutely neutral frame of mind, and not under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

When we talk about specially designed interviews, one of the most popular concept is the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. It is basically a diagnostic exam predominantly used to diagnose some of the major dissociative disorders. In psychiatric patients, the test may last for anywhere between 1-2 hours. Yet another popular tool of diagnosis is the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) - a questionnaire widely used to diagnose dissociative symptoms. There also exist separate DES tests for children and adolescents. While the dissociative identity disorder test for children is referred to as the DES scale for children, the test for adolescents is known as DES scale for adolescents.

That was all you needed to know about split personality disorder test. Irrespective of which of these split personality tests is chosen, it has to be performed by a trained professional i.e. some psychiatrist or psychologist, in order to get credible results. More importantly, the person being subjected to these tests has to answer them honestly as a part of the diagnosis process. Once the disorder has been established, the person has to be promptly subjected to multiple personality disorder treatment. The treatment mostly revolves around the use of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy alongside the use of psychiatric medications. The sooner the disorder is diagnosed, the easier becomes the treatment process.