Conversely, psychologist Naomi Torres-Mackie, head of research at The Mental Health Coalition, has stated "All of a sudden, all of my adolescent patients think that they have this, and they dont ... Folks start attaching clinical meaning and feeling like, I should be diagnosed with this. I need medication for this, when actually a lot of these experiences are normative and dont need to be pathologized or treated. "In the USA Network television production Mr. Robot, the protagonist Elliot Alderson is shown to have signs of DID and schizophrenia.In M. Night Shyamalans Unbreakable superhero film series (specifically the second film, Split), one character is diagnosed with DID, and that some of the personalities have super-human powers. Some advocates believe that the film is a negative portrayal.In Marvel Comics, the character of Moon Knight is shown to have DID. In the TV series Moon Knight based on the comic book character, protagonist Marc Spector is depicted with DID; the website for the National Alliance on Mental Illness appears in the series end credits. Another Marvel character, Legion, has DID in the comics, although he has schizophrenia in the TV show version. Legal issues
People with dissociative identity disorder may be involved in legal cases as a witness, defendant, or as the victim/injured party. In the United States dissociative identity disorder has previously been found to meet the Frye test as a generally accepted medical condition, and the newer Daubert standard.
It is therefore unknown if there is a commonality between all dissociative experiences, or if the range of mild to severe symptoms is a result of different etiologies and biological structures. Other terms used in the literature, including personality, personality state, identity, ego state, and amnesia, also have no agreed upon definitions. Multiple competing models exist that incorporate some non-dissociative symptoms while excluding dissociative ones.Due to the lack of consensus regarding terminology in the study of DID, several terms have been proposed. One is ego state (behaviors and experiences possessing permeable boundaries with other such states but united by a common sense of self), while the other term is alters (each of which may have a separate autobiographical memory, independent initiative and a sense of ownership over individual behavior).Ellert Nijenhuis and colleagues suggest a distinction between personalities responsible for day-to-day functioning (associated with blunted physiological responses and reduced emotional reactivity, referred to as the "apparently normal part of the personality" or ANP) and those emerging in survival situations (involving fight-or-flight responses, vivid traumatic memories and strong, painful emotions – the "emotional part of the personality" or EP). "Structural dissociation of the personality" is used by Otto van der Hart and colleagues to distinguish dissociation they attribute to traumatic or pathological causes, which in turn is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary dissociation.