"aw,m ormemso GREAVES Common Errors in the Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorde r

Psychotherapists report widely different experiences in their attempts at treating multiple personality disorder (MPD) patients. Some have deepened their interests and developed full-time specialized practices with this clinical population. Others have declined to have any further contact with them at all, referring possible MPD patients to colleagues when they first suspec t that this disorder may be present. Still others have decided against treating more than one or two MPD patients. These diverse decisions are examined with a focus upon the effects of therapists ' uneven attention to the formal properties of the dyadic psycho-therapeutic experiences as a possible influence upon their future work with MPD. Problems concerning theframework of psycho-therapy and the countertransference conflicts which often move the therapist unconsciously and irrationally to alter the canons o f psychotherapy in mutually detrimental ways appear to be crucial determinants. Beginning in 1980 a dispute of some proportio n arose as to whether multiple personality disorder (MPD) could be assumed to be as rare as ever, or whether i t simply had been misdiagnosed and mistreated fo r generations, and in fact was more common than gener