You're not allowed to say split personality anymore? OMG this country is ridiculous
from Wikipedia on the movie Split (following that movie is when I heard about the controversy of that terminology)
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Reaction from the mental health communityEdit
The film has been poorly received by
mental illnessand
dissociative identity disorder campaigners.
Mental health advocates warn that the film stigmatizes dissociative identity disorder and may directly affect those living with it.
[41] "You are going to upset and potentially exacerbate
symptoms in thousands of people who are already suffering,"
psychiatrist Dr. Garrett Marie Deckel, a DID specialist at Mount Sinai's
Icahn School of Medicine, said immediately after seeing the film. She said that, in contrast to McAvoy's character, people with DID, who may represent over 1% of Americans, are rarely violent, and research has shown they are far more likely to hurt themselves than to hurt others. Movies tend to portray only "the most extreme aspects" of the disorder, which, she said, can misrepresent a form of mental health that is not well understood by the lay public, and even some
psychiatrists.
In a statement about the movie, the
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation(ISSTD) cited a soon-to-be-released study of 173 people with DID. The researchers found that only 3 percent were charged with an offense, 1.8 percent were fined, and less than 1 percent were in jail over a six-month span. No convictions or probations were reported in that time period. In an open letter to Shyamalan, several activists said that "Split represents yet another gross parody of us based on fear, ignorance, and sensationalism, only much worse."
[42]
Dr. Sheldon Itzkowitz, a New York-based
psychologistand
psychoanalyst, said he had not seen the movie, and did not plan to, telling
Healthline: "What concerns me is how the film may inadvertently demonize people who are truly suffering. DID is a
disorder that has its
etiology in the worst form of human suffering – the
abuse of innocent children". He said many of his patients with DID are highly functioning people whose friends and co-workers don't know how much the person may be affected by their condition. When films and stories "vilify and demonize mental illness in general, and DID in particular," the viewer does not understand how hard it can be for that person to survive, he added.
[43]