Dissociative Identity Disorders have been in the literature and entertainment culture for over a century. Beginning with Jekyll and Hyde in the late 1800s, up to the rather recent film in 2016, Split. This movie most focuses on three girls who are kidnapped by a man named Kevin. Kevin is suffering from the extremely rare, dissociative identity disorder. He has 23 distinct personalities and the movie continuously hints of a 24th personality emerging and completely taking over his body and his time. As Kevin’s therapist delves deeper into the psyche of each personality that visits her, the three girls are looking for different ways of escaping. Two main antagonists are portrayed through the different personas of Kevin. Patricia which is a British female personality who has her eyes on having all of Kevin’s time. The second antagonist is Dennis who is the one who kidnapped the girls and was, in a way, the enforcer for anytime that the girls tried escaping. It is seen throughout the movie that the personalities are fighting against each other. For example, Barry was the personality who decided which personality was able to be in the “light” but loses this authority when Patricia and Dennis get Hedwig to take it away. Hedwig is a rather innocent 9-year-old personality who has complete control over whoever is in the light. Eventually, the fearful 24th personality emerges, which causes Kevin’s body to grow significantly taller and have superhuman abilities.

It is known early on in the movie that Kevin suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. His multiple alters also show different types of abnormal behaviour. Due to his extremely abusive mother Kevin’s mind began splitting into multiple personas. Dennis, for example, came to be due to severe childhood abuse. Although DID is extremely rare, through research we know that DID is a result of sever childhood abuse, PTSD, or trauma from sickness or other. For a patient to be diagnosed with DID they must have been exposed to the previous experiences. According the DSM-5, the most obvious symptom of DID is, “the presence of two or more distinct personalities.” We could see in the movie that Kevin has many distinct personalities which is the main focus of the movie. Kevin is also shown that he fills other criteria for DID such recurrent dissociative amnesia, which can be seen as he was horrified to find out he has not been in control of his body for two years. The DSM-5 also dictates that the patient may feel extremely distressed due to the “possession” of the alternate identities. Over 70% of patients have attempted suicide, it has also been observed that multiple attempts and self harming behaviour has been common. The moment Kevin took over his own body, he first begged one of the other characters to kill him, which is aligned with observed suicide risk and patient distress in the DSM-5. According to the ISSD 2011, it has included many forms of many treatment plans. However, the primary treatment is individual psychotherapy. The most ideal goal for the patient is to have all of the alternate personalities stabilize and combine. Medication such as anti-anxiety should and coping strategies should be used as well. These different techniques can help the patient. Most likely alternate personalities may come out out due to re traumatisation or flashback to the trauma, when they they are older. Due to the sensitivity of of each individual patient their treatment plan must be extremely intricate and tailored to the patient’s unique me