Obsession, split personality, dark alter ego… Split personality is an inexhaustible topic for thrillers, horror films and psychological dramas. Last year, the screens released another film about this — «Split». We decided to find out how the “cinematic” picture reflects what happens in the head of real people with a diagnosis of “multiple personality”.
In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By “hooking” a depraved monster into the body of a respectable gentleman, Stevenson was able to show the fragility of the ideas about the norm that existed among his contemporaries. What if every man of the world, with his impeccable upbringing and manners, slumbers his own Hyde?
Stevenson denied any connection between the events in the work and real life. But in the same year, an article was published by psychiatrist Frederic Mayer on the phenomenon of «multiple personality», where he mentioned the case known at that time — the case of Luis Vive and Felida Isk. Coincidence?
The idea of coexistence and struggle of two (and sometimes more) identities of one person attracted many authors. It has everything you need for a first-class drama: mystery, suspense, conflict, unpredictable denouement. If you dig even deeper, similar motifs can be found in folk culture — fairy tales, legends and superstitions. Demonic possession, vampires, werewolves — all these plots are united by the idea of two entities that alternately try to control the body.
The shadow is a part of the personality that is rejected and suppressed by the personality itself as undesirable.
Often the struggle between them symbolizes the confrontation between the «light» and «dark» sides of the hero’s soul. This is exactly what we see in the line of Gollum/Smeagol from The Lord of the Rings, a tragic character, morally and physically disfigured by the power of the ring, but retaining the remnants of humanity.
When the criminal is in the head: a real story
Many directors and writers, through the image of an alternative «I», sought to show what Carl Gustav Jung called the Shadow — a part of the personality that is rejected and suppressed by the personality itself as undesirable. The shadow can come to life in dreams and hallucinations, taking the form of a sinister monster, demon, or hated relative.
Jung saw one of the goals of therapy as incorporating the Shadow into the structure of the personality. In the film «Me, Me Again and Irene» the hero’s victory over his «bad «I» becomes at the same time a victory over his own fears and insecurities.
In the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, the behavior of the hero (or villain) Norman Bates superficially resembles the behavior of real people with dissociative identity disorder (DID). You can even find articles on the Internet where Norman is diagnosed in accordance with the criteria of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10): the presence in one person of two or more separate personalities, amnesia (one person does not know what the other is doing while she owns the body) , the breakdown of the disorder beyond the limits of social and cultural norms, the creation of obstacles to a full life of a person. In addition, such a disorder does not occur as a result of the use of psychoactive substances and as a symptom of a neurological disease.
Hitchcock focuses not on the inner torment of the hero, but on the destructive power of parental relationships when they come down to control and possession. The hero loses the battle for his independence and the right to love someone else, literally turning into his mother, who destroys everything that can force her image out of her son’s head.
The films make it look like DID patients are potential criminals. But it’s not like that
The smile on Norman’s face in the last shots looks truly ominous, because it clearly does not belong to him: his body is captured from the inside, and he has no chance to win back his freedom.
And yet, despite the gripping plot and themes, these films use split personality only as a tool for creating a story. As a result, the real disorder begins to be associated with dangerous and unstable movie characters. Neuroscientist Simone Reinders, a dissociative disorder researcher, is very concerned about what impression people might get after watching these films.
“They make it look like DID patients are potential criminals. But it’s not. More often than not, they try to hide their mental problems.”
The mental mechanism that generates splitting is designed to relieve a person of excessive stress as soon as possible. “We all have a universal mechanism for dissociation as a response to severe stress,” explains clinical psychologist and cognitive therapist Yakov Kochetkov. — When we are very scared, part of our personality — more precisely, the time that our personality occupies — is lost. Often this condition occurs during military operations or a disaster: a person goes on the attack or flies in a falling plane and sees himself from the side.
“Many people dissociate frequently, and some do it so regularly that dissociation can be said to be their main mechanism for functioning under stress,” writes psychotherapist Nancy McWilliams.
In the series «So Different Tara» the plot is built around how a dissociative person (artist Tara) solves the most common problems: in romantic relationships, at work, with children. In this case, «personalities» can be both sources of problems and saviors. Each of them contains a piece of the heroine’s personality: the devout housewife Alice personifies discipline and order (Super-Ego), the girl Birdie — her childhood experiences, and the rude veteran Buck — «uncomfortable» desires.
Attempts to understand how a person with a dissociative disorder feels are made in films such as The Three Faces of Eve and Sybil (2007). Both of them are based on real stories. Eve’s prototype from the first film is Chris Sizemore, one of the first known «cured» patients with this disorder. Sizemore actively collaborated with psychiatrists and therapists, she herself prepared materials for a book about herself, and contributed to the dissemination of information about dissociative disorder.
What place in this series will «Split» take? On the one hand, the film industry has its own logic: it is more important to intrigue and entertain the viewer than to tell him about how the world works. On the other hand, where else to draw inspiration from, if not from real life?
The main thing is to realize that reality itself is more complex and richer than the picture on the screen.
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