Hide & Seek and Dissociative Identity Disorder

Hide & Seek and Dissociative Identity Disorder

In the psycho thriller, Hide & Seek, a widower and his daughter struggle with a very scary, very extreme case of an “imaginary” friend. After losing his wife to suicide, David, played by Robert DeNiro, decides it would be best for him and his daughter Emily, played by Dakota Fanning, to move away from the city where his wife died and start their lives over fresh. The events that would unfold are extremely bizarre and beyond scary. Influenced by her imaginary friend, Charlie, Emily begins behaving in a very strange and destructive manner. Thinking she is just going through a grieving process after losing her mother, David tries to shake it off and go about his daily activities. He sat back and let nature take its course, until one day, when it eventually turned deadly. It turned out that Charlie was more real than he could have ever imagined. In fact, David knew Charlie better than Emily did. He was Charlie.

David had what is known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Originally called Multiple Personality Disorder, DID is commonly mistaken for Schizophrenia, although the two are actually very different. DID is a very rare condition in which a person has two or more separate personalities, without being conscious of it. Each personality typically has its own name, as well as its own history and self-image. These different personalities may range very widely in age and gender. These alternate personalities, also known as alters, are not really separate people, but rather a “system of mind”

(Kluft, 1993). Meaning, that each alter embodies different aspects of the individuals personality that can’t seem to integrate into the primary personality. Each alter holds memories and emotions that are not taken into the individual’s conscious mind.

Finding that Emily's strange, withdrawn behavior was only getting worse, with the child constantly mentioning Charlie as her new companion, David is driven to the brink of sanity when vicious and mysterious occurrences start happening around the house. Emily would always claim, “Charlie did it,” when questioned by her father. But to David, who had no knowledge of how real Charlie actually was, her claims were not only crazy, but impossible. Although Emily knew her father and Charlie were the same human body, David had no idea.

Often, the individual suffering from DID is not aware that they have more than one personality, and cannot remember events that happened when one of their alters appeared. At different times, different alters take control of the individual’s experience, thoughts, and behavior (Kihlstrom, 1992). David, like individuals suffering from DID, had no idea that Charlie was actually one of his alters. Nor did he remember the frightening acts that Charlie had been doing while his alter was in control.

While some suggest that trauma is a necessary but not sufficient element for the development of DID (Waller, Putnam & Carlson, 1996), it is now widely accepted that DID can commence in childhood as a response to severe and often ongoing interpersonal trauma such as emotional,