The identity disorder disociativo or of persnoalidad multiple is the disorder characterized by the existence of two or more identities or states of the personality that control the behavior of the individual of an alternating way.

In this da disorder an amnesia consisting of the incapability to remember excellent personal information about some of the coexistent identities. The amnesia is not uniform in all the personalities, so that what does not know one of the personalities can know other one.

The identity disorder disociativo is serious and it has chronic character; it can prove invalidante and generate incapability. It collaborates with a lot of frequency to attempts of suicide; in fact one believes that it is very probable that it ends in perfect suicide. Several studies demonstrate that of 3 to 4 % of the incomer patients and of the excessive consumers of substances psicoactivas they endure disorder of the personality disociativo.

The persons with an identity disorder disociativo can experience often a picture of symptoms that can look alike to those of other psychiatric disorders. The symptoms can be similar to those of the anxiety, of the alterations of the personality, of the schizophrenia and of the affective disorders or of the epilepsy. Most of the persons suffer symptoms of depression, anxiety (make difficult to breathe, intensive pulse, palpitations), phobias, attacks of panic, sexual malfunctions, alterations of the appetite, postraumático stress and symptoms that simulate those of the physical illnesses. They can worry about the suicide and the attempts are frequent, as well as the self-mutilation episodes. Many persons with identity disorder disociativo abuse the alcohol or the drugs in some moment of his life.

The change of personalities and the absence of conscience of the proper behavior in other personalities make the life of a person often chaotic with this disorder. As the personalities often interact between them, the person says to hear internal conversations and the voices of other personalities. This is a type of hallucinations.

There are several signs typical of the disorder of the personality disociativo:

• Different symptoms that happen in different moments.
• A fluctuating aptitude to assume his functions, from the efficacy in the work and in the house up to the inability.
• Intense headaches and other physical symptoms.
• Distortions and errors in the time and amnesia.
• Depersonalization and desrealización (feeling of being separated from one himself and experiencing his way like unreal).

The persons with an identity disorder disociativo often hear others speaking about what they have done but what they do not remember. Others can mention changes in his behavior that they do not remember either. They can discover objects, products or manuscripts with which they were not provided or which they do not recognize. Often they refer to themselves as “nosotros ”, “él ” or “ella ”. While, in general, the persons cannot remember very much about his first five years of life, the person with an identity disorder disociativo does not remember the happened between his 6 and 11 years either.

The persons with an identity disorder disociativo have typically a history of three or more different previous psychiatric diagnoses and that they have not answered to the treatment. These persons worry much about topics of control, both the self-control and the control of the others.

The identity disorder disociativo needs psychotherapy often facilitated by the hypnosis. The symptoms can go and come in a spontaneous way, but the disorder does not disappear for itself. The treatment can relieve some specific symptoms but it does not have effects on the disorder in itself.

The treatment is often arduous and emotionally painfully. Generally, one or two psychotherapy meetings are necessary a week during at least 3 to 6 years. The meetings take as a target to integrate the personalities in the only personality or to reach a harmonious interaction between them that allows a normal life without symptoms. The integration of the personalities is the ideal thing but not always it is obtained. The visits are limited to the therapist gradually but it is strange that they end. The patients they can entrust to the therapist so that it helps them, occasionally, to confront the psychological problems, in the same way that can do it periodically with their own doctor.