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>>Multiple personalities are
at the heart of a number
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of books, movies, and TV
shows,
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and they're at the heart of
a contentious debate.
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Multiple Choice'
is our cover story.
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Reported now by Tracy Smith.
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>>[character in show]I know about
the, the MPD, multiple personalities.
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>>[Smith] You could call it
the role or roles of a lifetime.
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>>[Tara] Somebody's got
Bucky's in the oven.
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Hey, honey, it's me.
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Tara.
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>>[Smith] In the TV show,
United States of Tara,
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Toni Collette plays just one woman
who has multiple personalities.
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>>[TV character]
Wait, you're who?
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>>[Diablo Cody] We've met Buck, who
is this very sort of aggressive male
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personality that she has.
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We've met T, who is a very, kind
of a sexualized teenage personality,
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and Alice who is the
ultimate homemaker.
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>>[Smith] They all come from
the mind of Diablo Cody,
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the Oscar-winning writer
of the hit film Juno.
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>>[Tara] You're gonna
think I'm insane.
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Well, I'm sure
already do. [laughs]
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>>[Smith] She created the series
for the CBS cable network Showtime.
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Have people in
the audience...
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Have viewers recognized
themselves in Tara.
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Said maybe I have this disorder.
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Have you gotten that reaction?
>>[Cody] You know, it surprises me.
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People actually have said that.
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>>[Smith] Though Tara
doesn't exist in real life,
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many therapists say
her illness sure does.
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How real is Tara?
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>>[Dr. Richard Kluft] Tara is extremely
real, but extremely, um, unrealistic.
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>>[Tara's daughter] Why are
you here instead of mom?
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>>[Tara] Your mom's at
a bad place mentally. Yeah.
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>>[Kluft] What I mean to say is
everything that Tara
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demonstrates is real.
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I've seen it many, many, many
times over.
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What is unrealistic is that you
see so much of it so quickly.
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>>[Tara's son] This is just unsanitary.
>>[Tara] Oh, wrap it up, Doris Day.
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>>[Smith] It's concentrated.
>>[Kluft] Precisely.
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Tara is a concentrate.
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>>[Smith] Dr. Richard Kluft is a
psychiatrist who teaches at
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Temple University Medical
School in Philadelphia and
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consults on Tara.
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Today, doctors prefer the less
flashy name,
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dissociative identity disorder,
DID,
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to multiple personality disorder, MPD.
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They are the same.
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What's typical?
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How many personalities are
typical in an MPD case?
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>>[Kluft] In an MPD case in the
United States these days,
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about 16 for women and
about 8 for men.
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>>[Smith] Kluft says most people
with this disorder develop multiple
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personalities or 'alters' as a way
to cope with trauma or abuse.
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>>[Kluft] Whatever allows you to
say 'this did not happen to me.'
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'This is not going to
happen to me again.'
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'I'm someone else.'
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>>[Smith] And believe it or
not, according to Kluft,
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multiple personalities
often go unnoticed.
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So do you think that
there are what?
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Thousands of people walking
around out there with MPD
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who don't even know it?
>>[Kluft] Oh, easily.
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>>[Smith] Tens of thousands?
>>[Kluft] Easily.
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>>[Smith] Hundreds of thousands?
>>[Kluft] Easily.
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>>[Smith] Millions?
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>>[Kluft] We might be at that level.
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>>[Smith] But there are
other therapists who say
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the number's not in
the millions but zero,
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that not even a single case of
multiple personalities is real.
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The whole concept-- not
Sigmund Freud but junk science.
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>>[McHugh] I believe all MPD
cases are artificial productions,
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provoked by the attention
doctors and others give them.
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All of them.
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>>[Smith] Dr. Paul McHugh is a professor
and former Head of Psychiatry
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at John's Hopkins Medical School
in Baltimore.
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People are persuaded that they
have multiple personalities
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embedded within them and are
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encouraged to bring them out in
the process of trying to get
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treatment for depression or
anxiety or things of that sort.
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>>[On TV] If you're not
Eve White, who are you?
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>>[Eve] I'm Eve Black.
You know that.
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>>[Smith] It all began,
says Dr. McHugh,
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not with shrinks but celluloid.
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First the film The Three Faces
of Eve in 1957.
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Then Sybil in 1976.
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>>[Sybil] I hate Sybil!
I hate her!
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>>Who are you?
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>>[Smith] Before Sybil, there were fewer
than 200 reported cases in the world.
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>>[Sybil] Do you like my hair?
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>>[Smith] Not long afterward,
there were 8,000 in the United
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States alone.
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>>[McHugh] It's a story generated
by Sybil and generated by the
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people who followed on after it.
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Multiple personality and trauma
are two separate things,
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and these people have put them
together as though they do match,
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but they only match in story form.
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We are in ...Oz here.
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>>[Smith] If MPD is make believe,
you wouldn't expect to find
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it in a manual.
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The DSM-IV, the 'bible' of
mental health professionals
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used to diagnosis
mental disorders.
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Symptoms include the
presence of two or more
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distinct identities or
personality states.
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At least two of these
recurrently take control
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of the person's behavior.
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Plus an inability to recall important personal information.
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The DSM authors claim that
as many as 1% of Americans
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have the disorder.
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But even that doesn't sway
detractors like Dr. Paul McHugh.
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So, wait.
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The DSM doesn't validate that a
disease is actually out there?
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>>[McHugh] Absolutely no.
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All it says is this is what
several people say exists,
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and this is what it
looks like to them.
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>>[Smith] How many different
personalities do you think you have?
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>>Oh, jeez, I've probably
got a bunch of them.
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>>[Smith] Give me a number.
Dozens?
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>>Oh, yeah.
I've got a dozen.
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>>[Smith] At least a dozen.
>>Yes.
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>>[Smith] MPD is no fantasy
to this former ballplayer.
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A Heisman Trophy winner,
arguably one of the
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greatest running backs
of all time.
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[play-by-play announcer]
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Herschel Walker, the University
of Georgia All American recently
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revealed that he's been
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diagnosed with multiple
personalities.
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[play-by-play announcer] Man,
did he turn it on when he had to!
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>>[Smith] Walker, now a
successful businessman,
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says he developed the disorder
when he was a kid.
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I had a stuttering problem,
had a speech problem.
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I couldn't put a sentence together...
>>[Smith] And the kids teased you?
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>>[Walker] The kids
teased me all the time.
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>>[Smith] And you think that abuse
was severe enough that you
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started developing these
multiple personalities?
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Well, it wasn't important that it was
severe-- It was severe enough.
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>>[Smith] He describes his
alters in an autobiography.
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They don't have names,
just titles, like the general,
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who tried to keep his alters in
line and the warrior,
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a competitive personality
who was uncontrollable,
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the one who made him play
Russian roulette.
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>>[Walker] And I remember
putting a bullet in a gun and
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spinning the cylinder and
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putting it to my head and pulling it.
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>>[Smith] What do you think
would have happened to you if
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you didn't get therapy?
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Oh, I could have ended up
in jail, dead,
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could have hurt someone.
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>>[Smith] You know there's
a lot of debate about this.
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>>[Walker] Yes.
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>>{Smith] There are respected
therapists out there who say...
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>>[Walker] Why are they respected?
[Smith laughs] I'm serious.
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Why are they respected?
>>[Smith] By their peers.
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By you know...
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>>[Walker] Okay, wow their peers
respect them. That's what I'm saying.
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These are doctors, but I'm the
one that has been through it.
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They're very good at
saying that, but I'm here
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just to say, you know, uh, they
didn't have to go through it.
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>>[Smith] But there are scores of patients
who did go through it-- treatment,
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that is, who say their lives
were ruined by therapists
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who convinced them they had
a disorder that didn't exist.
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Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes
spoke to one of them in
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1997, Nadean Cool.
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>>[Wallace] A 126
different personalities.
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What does that mean, Nadean?
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>>[Nadean] It means that I
had 126 different people....
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>>[Wallace] In you?
>>[Nadean] Inside me.
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>>[Wallace] And you believed in
multiple personality disorder.
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>>[Nadean] He taught me to
believe in multiple personality...
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>>[Wallace] So you believed?
>>[Nadean] Yes.
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>>[Smith] She sued her psychiatrist,
who settled the case for
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2.3 million dollars.
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Dr. Kluft closely watched that
case and others where
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doctors paid big money.
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>>[Kluft] Settling is not
an admission of guilt.
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Settling is a way of ending a
process in a way that's
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agreeable to various parties.
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>>[On TV] Who is this? I can't
remember what this one is called.
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>>[Smith] But Hollywood
is of one mind about MPD...
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>>[Tara] I'm with child.
>>[Smith] Spellbound.
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After all, Tara's creators
are not doctors but dramatists,
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the series not science
but show biz.
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Are you adding to the
discussion about whether
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this is a real disorder?
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>>[Cody] I think so, for
better or for worse.
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But to generate
discussion at all,
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I see that as a positive thing.
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>>[On TV] I mean, why
can't she just stop?
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I mean, it's not even a real
disease, Max.
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>>[Max] It's real, Sharmy.
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>>[Smith] Renewed for another season,
Tara will continue to raise questions
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about mental illness,
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multiple questions.
