Multiple Personality Disorder Case Study: Uniting the Many Faces of Neha

Written By

Dr. Amar Shinde

Published on: 21 May 2025

Patient Information:

Name: Neha (Identity Protected)

Age: 28 years

Gender: Female

Background: 

Neha had an urban upbringing. She is 28 years old and is a graduate. When she came to Jagruti Rehab for help, she was working with a marketing firm and was complaining of friends, colleagues, and family complaining about her behaviour and actions that she could not remember. She thought she was experiencing memory loss and wanted help with it.

History or Cause:

The patient, whom we are referring to as Neha, came from a normal, happy, middle-class, supportive family background. She was noted as an outgoing and ambitious young woman with a promising future. However, unknown to everyone, including Neha, lies years of buried trauma. It silently gave birth to a complex inner world of happiness and validation that was knocking on the surface to come out and break her identity.

While initially Neha talked happily about her family, soon, in one of the therapies, we discovered she had episodes of neglect and physical abuse in childhood. One of her distant relatives had physically abused her. Unable to cope and share this with her family, she developed her own coping mechanisms that all went unnoticed till her mid-20s.

However, she had to seek help when her work colleagues started complaining about her becoming a different person mid-presentation or conversation. People at work started becoming distant, and she got a call from HR. Simultaneously, at home, she sometimes acted and dressed like a teenager, and suddenly, she would act all serious and angry, like a grown-up. She was alarmed when she could not remember anything about these episodes, both at the office and on the home front. The episodes started becoming frequent, and the people around her started saying that she had multiple personalities. Embarrassed and concerned about her image, she visited a clinical psychologist for help, thinking she had memory issues.

Diagnosis:

Neha first visited a clinical psychologist who worked with the organisation where she worked. The psychologist, after doing a preliminary assessment, referred her to Jagruti Rehabilitation Centre. The psychologist suspected Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, and this referred her to Jagruti Rehab in Hyderabad, as she may need Rehab time.

On arriving at Jagruti Rehab, we conducted multi-layered assessments for a detailed diagnostic process. It involved the following:

• Comprehensive Psychological Evaluation: We used SCID-D (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders) and were able to find four distinct personalities in her, which we refer to as "alters".

• Observation and Journaling: For the first two weeks, Neha was given the homework to maintain a written journal in intervals and videos of different moods. The observations showed clear signs of dissociative states. There were changes in handwriting, her speech and language changed, her demeanour was different at different times, and her ways of expressing emotions varied excessively.

• Medical Rule-Out: We also made her undergo neurological scans and physical tests to rule out any physical or neurodegenerative condition behind the symptoms.

Final Diagnosis: After a thorough assessment and multiple tests, we finally confirmed that Neha was suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and required rehabilitation treatment as an inpatient.

Treatment:

Approach:

DID is a complex condition. So our primary goal was to help her alters or different personalities communicate freely, understand them and their roles and eventually unite them all into one, creating a solid, reliable identity. We did not want to use any form of force or reinforcement, as that was what caused the trauma and the emergence of the condition in the first place. Instead, we chose to focus on healing with harmony.

Program:

Neha was asked to take a 6-month residential rehabilitation program at Jagruti Rehabilitation Centre. At the Rehab, we could keep her under supervision 24/7 to monitor her and immediately take steps when needed. Her treatment was divided mainly into three key phases:

Phase 1: Stabilisation (Week 1–4)

In the first month, we wanted to stabilise her behaviour. In the absence of environmental stress, she began to feel more comfortable and open up, making it easy for our therapists to understand her and take action. The first month consisted of-

• Psychoeducation about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• Establishing safety and a daily routine
• Introduction to journaling from different alters
• Trust-building exercises

Key Development: One of the alters, "Sasha," started getting friendly and talking. She was a 16-year-old rebellious girl. She hated authority and was a rebellious protector. The persona was created during Neha's traumatic teenage years in her mind.

Phase 2: Processing Trauma (Week 5–16)

The second to fourth month was about unwrapping Neha's traumas to process them and let them go. This phase consisted of- 

• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT): Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps to identify and process repressed memories and beliefs formed due to abuse.
• Internal Family Systems (IFS): This is where we mapped Neha's personality. We marked them and communicated with them to understand their roles and the reasons they were born. Neha had Sasha as her protector, Maya, who was a 7-year-old child who was scared and needed saving, and Rhea, who was Miss Popular. Rhea was a perfectionist as well and represented Neha at social gatherings. Finally, there was Neha, the original identity.
• Art Therapy: Movements with colours helped her to express her trauma on paper and let go. 
• Hypnotherapy: This was used cautiously to recover the hidden memories that caused the trauma and the birth of personalities. It also helped with internal communication and acceptance.

Key Development: Maya, the child alter, started speaking during a play therapy session. She talked about her fears and traumatic images from early childhood.

Phase 3: Integration and Healing (Week 17–24)

The final phase, in 5-6 months, consisted of healing her personalities and integrating them. It consisted of -

• Unification Exercises: We used guided imagery to help the alters interact with each other. We conducted "internal meetings" to aid more communication.
• Memory Bridging Techniques: We started the practice of sharing within the alters through internal meetings. Open communication between all personalities helped Neha reduce signs of amnesia. 
• Mindfulness & Grounding Techniques: These techniques help to calm the mind at times of stress. Triggers become bearable with mind resistance that can be built with mindfulness and grounding techniques. Regular practice helped Neha to use this as a coping strategy during episodes.
• Group Therapy: We brought her together with others suffering from the same condition. First, it gave her confidence when she understood she was not alone in the fight, and second, she got a new perspective.

Key Development: By her 20th week in Rehab, Neha could hear her alters talking without losing consciousness. The moment of co-consciousness became normal, and she could stop switching. It also helped with the amnesia as she started being present all the time.

Medical Treatments:

There are no direct medicines to treat DID or its symptoms. However, at the rehabilitation centre, she was given a low-dose SSRI (Sertraline) to help her manage co-occurring anxiety and depression under supervision.

Also, Melatonin was temporarily prescribed to help her sleep patterns till she became comfortable and could trust the environment.

Improvements / Recovery Timeline:

By the final week of the rehab program, Neha mastered co-consciousness. She could manage her alters, recognise her triggers fast and use coping mechanisms to maintain her emotional stability without losing herself.

Our Success:

Impact on Patient's Life:

Today, Neha is living independently with her partner again. She joined a new office where she works part-time. The work environment is supportive. She also continues her therapy as an outpatient. She has not experienced full dissociative blackouts since she left Jagruti Rehab. She also maintains digital and physical journals to keep the communication flowing between her alters.

Neha says, "I am living as a team leader who can make her team cooperate happily." 

Family and Community:

Neha was not the only one who received sessions during her stay at Jagruti Rehab. Her family was given psychoeducation as well. It was important for the family to understand that her condition and symptoms were not "attention-seeking" but were caused because she was not given enough attention when she needed it. Her condition is a survival mechanism caused by her circumstances. Behind the scenes, Neha's relationship with her mother improved drastically as communication lines opened. The awareness helped the family to replace judgment with empathy.

She left her last company because of the 6-month rehab program, but is on good terms with the people.  

Future Steps:

Neha is prescribed to continue weekly therapy to ensure that the co-consciousness is in place. It is important for her alters to communicate with each other and manage stress and triggers together actively. Regular psychiatric check-ins, family support sessions, and participation in a DID support group ensure that she is making progress. The focus is to maintain emotional stability, improve co-consciousness, and prevent a relapse.

Conclusion:

This multiple personality disorder case study cannot be considered a single story. It is a testament to the human mind's resilience. At Jagruti Rehabilitation Centre, we believe in holistic healing for preventive measures with increased mind resistance. Neha's story showed us that, irrespective of how complex your mind is, healing is possible with the right guidance, therapy, and support.

Dr. Amar Shinde

Dr. Amar Shinde, founder of Jagruti Rehab, is a renowned psychiatrist in India with over two decades of experience in mental health, addiction recovery, and neuropsychiatry, dedicated to holistic, compassionate patient care.