Answers will vary but should contain at least three of the following points, including the first one for sure, to earn full credit. • DID is one of the dissociative disorders characterized by disruptions in a unified sense of the self (through disruptions in consciousness, memory, identity, or perception), where there are multiple personalities within a single individual. Schizophrenia by contrast deals with disruptions in thought processes and emotions that lead to a loss of contact with reality and in turn affect expression of language, emotions, perceptual abilities, and relationships with others. • DID is a highly controversial disorder with many critics doubting its existence as a valid diagnosis. By contrast, schizophrenia has long been recognized as a disorder (going back to Bleuler’s coining of the term in 1911). • DID is proposed to arise as a response for dealing with experiences of childhood sexual abuse (in response to environmental factors when it cannot be explained via the sociocognitive model), whereas schizophrenia is often linked to biological and/or genetic causes. However, many psychologists take the approach that schizophrenia is caused by having a predisposition to schizophrenia along with an exposure to significant stress or multiple stressors in one’s life, making the disorder more likely to emerge (diathesis-stress model). • DID largely appeared with the use of suggestive therapeutic tools that seem to create the disorder (and fit with the sociocognitive explanation), whereas schizophrenia is only managed through the use of antipsychotic medications and hospitalization as necessary for the symptoms. • DID is often marked by the switching between one’s normal personality and the various “alters” that exist. Schizophrenia is often marked by the presence of delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, catatonia, or other disorganized behavior.
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