Essay: Dissociative Identity Disorders: Jekyll and Hyde / Split (2016)

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 mental health need.
This movie does not particularly go into how the other personalities were born, but we can see many times that these personalities have a way of communicating with each other within the mind. It is stated in the movie that the horde of personalities all have to wait in the chair and Barry is in charge of who gets to step into the “light”, in this case the “light” is whoever gets to control the body. I have always been skeptical about the fact that the alters are able to communicate with each other in such an elaborate way. Split shows that Dennis and Patricia idolize The Beast and they essentially kidnapped the three girls as a sacrifice for when The Beast emerges. To do this, they wrestle away the authority that Barry had over the light. It is shown that Hedwig was Kevin’s innocence as a child and is rather gullible. However, Hedwig has complete control over the mind and the capability to put or remove anyone from the light forcibly. Patricia causes Hedwig to lose trust in Barry so he no longer has authority, therefore successfully staging a coup d’état. The largest issue I’ve had with this movie was this power to fight for being the one in control. I have always believed that all alternate personas would be there to protect the main persona, in this case, Kevin. However, in the movie the Kevin has not been in the “light” for about 2 years.
There has always been a stigma in our culture that those with mental health issues are dangerous to society. Most people take fictional movies meant for entertainment, as fact. It is unfortunate because there are many families with member suffering from different mental illnesses, they understand the illness in which they are exposed. However, those who do not specifically study psychology only have movies, media, and other entertainment outlets to find out information on mental illness. Those with family or friends who suffer mental illness can only watch as the patients may be discriminated as “crazy or psycho.” They are immediately labelled as dangerous, but the fact is the most patients suffering from mental illness are more likely to be victims of abuse rather than perpetrators. Sadly, many begin to underestimate the seriousness that mental illness causes. However, just because mental illness cannot be seen, such as bodily harm or disease, does not mean we can insinuate that mental illness is not just as dangerous to millions of people around the world. Because the media also believe the stigma that those suffering from mental illness are dangerous, they immediately stereotype all mentall illnesss patients. By using terms such as schizophrenic or bulimic, adding the ‘-ic’ instantly puts a label onto these patients. The media uses these terms and those ignorant use these terms, unknowing that they are further spreading and stereotyping millions of people. The government and insurance companies even further underestimate the seriousness of mental illness due to severely limiting mental health help. Therefore, further restricting the amount of help that some patients desperately need, yet can not afford. The media goes further to instil that mental illness is something that be cured. The media implies that many patients are unable to make friends or unable to hold onto stable jobs. People tend to be disillusioned when they realise that mental illness differs from person to person. Just like how disease influences people differently and uniquely it is the same in regards to mental health.
DID also has a rather unfortunate reputation due to the media and multiple different Hollywood movies. This movie is enforcing the stigma into people’s minds that those who are suffering from DID have a tendency to be violent and it is creating an unfounded fear into the general populace who are ignorant and easily swayed. Split shows people that body chemistry can completely change between alters, which is completely inaccurate. An alter may believe they have supernatural powers due to a multitude of mental health issues, but saying that switching alters can cause a growth of six inches plus having near impenetrable skin is completely exaggerated for the movie to be more entertaining. What is very worrying is about how those actually suffering from DID and other similar disorders in movies, would react to seeing these. In my opinion, a large problem those in the psychology community face would be people feeling afraid and ashamed to address the mental health issues they may very possibly have. If insurance companies can cover people for mental health like they did for physical health, I truly believe there would be more improvements toward curing and curbing severe problems faced around the world. However, Split did have a few points that are not unfounded. For instance, those suffering from DID are at a risk of attempted suicide of about 70%, which we see in the movie as Kevin tries to get himself killed. Kevin clearly suffers from dissociative amnesia as he was unaware of everything happening around him for over 2 years. This is a diagnostics feature in the DSM-5 due the fact that in the cases of DID those patients have common symptoms.
In conclusion, there are many inaccuracies in the movie, but I understand that they are not completely at fault for trying to had the supernatural aspect. However, there are a few things I would absolutely change given the chance. The biggest change I would make would be the name of the powerful 24th personality. Throughout the movie main characters refer to this particular alter as “The Beast” which absolutely dehumanizes Kevin. The audience would unconsciously link DID to inhumanity, when these are patients who suffer on a daily basis. Minus the unexpected supernatural way it ended, this portrayal of DID was neither completely accurate nor completely inaccurate. The largest accuracy in my opinion was the distress and suicidal attempt Kevin showed of finding that he was not in control of his body for over 2 years. This also showed a very real struggle those suffering form DID have and are constantly at risk for.