DID Research

A masterlist of links for dissociative disorders. This site focuses primarily on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder subtype 1 (OSDD-1.) All of the links here lead to actual medical documents. Other Carrds, social media, and Rentry were not used in the process of making this.

Resources for Research
Dissociative Disorders
DID, P-DID, OSDD-1
Differential Diagnoses

Resources for Research

American Psychological Association
World Health Organization
DSM-1
DSM-II
DSM-III
DSM-IV
DSM-V
DSM-V-TR
ICD-10
ICD-11
Science Direct
Pubmed Central
Google Scholar

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Table of Contents
1. General
2. Alters
3. Factitous Disorder and Malingering

Types of parts/alters
Alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder
Introjection and dissociative identity disorder: a case report
What are Introjects?
Formation and functions of alter personalities in dissociative identity disorder: a theoretical and clinical elaboration
Alters in dissociative identity disorder: Metaphors or genuine entities?
Dissociative Identity Disorder with Five Alters: A Case Report
The evolution of alter personality states in dissociative identity disorder.

Differential Diagnoses

Table of Contents
1. Factitous Disorder and Malingering
2. Major depressive disorder
3. Bipolar Disorder
4. PTSD / C-PTSD
5. Personality Disorders

"Individuals who feign dissociative identity disorder usually do not report the subtle symptoms of intrusion characteristic of the disorder; instead they tend to overreport media-based symptoms of the disorder, such as dramatic dissociative amnesia and melodramatic switching behaviors, while underreporting less-publicized comorbid symptoms, such as depression. Individuals who feign dissociative identity disorder tend to be relatively undisturbed by or may even seem to enjoy “having” the disorder, or may ask clinicians to “find” traumatic memories. In contrast, most individuals with genuine dissociative identity disorder are ashamed of and overwhelmed by their symptoms, deny the diagnosis, underreport their symptoms, and display minimization and avoidance of their trauma history. Individuals who feign the symptoms of dissociative identity disorder usually create limited, stereotyped alternate identities, with feigned amnesia related only to the events for which gain is sought, with apparent switching behaviors and amnesia only displayed while being observed. They may present an “all-good” identity and an “all-bad” identity in hopes of gaining exculpation for a crime."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

Facticious Disorders
Malingering
malingered DID
Revisiting False-Positive and Imitated Dissociative Identity Disorder
Detecting clinical and simulated dissociative identity disorder with the Test of Memory Malingering
Factitious and Malingered Dissociative Identity Disorder
Malingering Dissociative Identity Disorder: Objective and Projective Assessment
Assessing malingering and personality styles in dissociative identity disorder: a case study
Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Media and Malingering
Fact or Factitious? A Psychobiological Study of Authentic and Simulated Dissociative Identity States
Claims of Dissociative Identity Disorder on the Internet: A new epidemic of Munchausen Syndrome?
The Imitation of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Patients at Risk, Therapists at Risk

"Most individuals with dissociative identity disorder endorse a lifelong
negative posttraumatic emotional state, often with childhood onset, and their symptoms may appear to meet the criteria for a major depressive episode. Moreover, posttraumatic reactivity to times of year when trauma occurred (anniversary reactions), primarily manifesting with more despondency, distress, and suicidal ideation, may also appear to be major depressive disorder, with seasonal pattern. However, individuals with major depressive disorder or persistent depressive disorder do not experience dissociative fluctuations in self and agency and dissociative amnesia. It is important to assess if all or most identity states are experiencing the adverse mood state, since mood disorder symptoms may fluctuate because they are experienced in some identity states, but not others."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

"Dissociative identity disorder is commonly misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder, typically bipolar II disorder, with mixed features. The relatively rapid shifts in behavioral state in individuals with dissociative identity disorder—usually within minutes or hours—are atypical for even the most rapid-cycling individuals with bipolar disorders. These state alterations are due to rapidly shifting dissociative states and/or fluctuating posttraumatic intrusions. Sometimes these shifts are accompanied by rapid changes in levels of activation, but these usually last minutes to hours, not days, and are associated with activation of specific identity states. Elevated or depressed mood may be experienced as loculated in specific identities, through overlap/interference phenomena. Usually, the individual with dissociative identity disorder does not have a classic bipolar sleep disturbance (e.g., reduced need for sleep), instead suffering from chronic, severe nightmares and nocturnal flashbacks that interrupt sleep."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

"A majority of individuals with dissociative identity disorder will have symptoms that meet diagnostic criteria for comorbid PTSD. Dissociative symptoms characteristic of dissociative identity disorder should be differentiated from the dissociative amnesia, dissociative flashbacks, and depersonalization/derealization characteristic of acute stress disorder, PTSD, or the dissociative subtype of PTSD. Dissociative amnesia in PTSD typically manifests only for specific traumatic events or aspects of traumatic events, as opposed to the chronic, complex dissociative amnesia characteristic of dissociative identity disorder. Depersonalization/derealization symptoms in the dissociative subtype of PTSD are related to specific posttraumatic reminders. Depersonalization/derealization symptoms in dissociative identity disorder may occur not only in response to posttraumatic reminders, but also in an ongoing fashion in daily life, including in response to stressful interpersonal interactions and when there is overlap/interference between states."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

"Individuals with dissociative identity disorder may experience symptoms that can superficially appear similar to those of psychotic disorders. These include auditory hallucinations and symptoms characteristic of intrusions of personality states into the individual’s awareness; these symptoms can seemingly resemble some of the Schneiderian first-rank symptoms formerly considered indicative of schizophrenia (e.g., thought broadcasting, thought insertion, thought withdrawal, hearing voices keeping up a running commentary about the individual). For example, hearing different personality states discussing the individual can resemble auditory hallucinations of voices arguing in schizophrenia. The individual with dissociative identity disorder may also experience the thoughts or emotions of an intruding personality state, which can resemble thought insertion in schizophrenia, as well as experience the sudden disappearance of these thoughts or emotions, which can resemble thought withdrawal. Such experiences in an individual with schizophrenia are usually accompanied by delusional beliefs about the cause of those symptoms (i.e., thoughts being inserted by an outside force), whereas individuals with dissociative identity disorder typically experience these symptoms as ego-alien and frightening. Individuals with dissociative identity disorder may also report a range of visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and somatic hallucinations, which are usually related to autohypnotic, posttraumatic, and dissociative factors, such as partial flashbacks, in contrast to individuals with schizophrenia, whose hallucinations are primarily auditory and less commonly visual. Dissociative identity disorder and psychotic disorders are therefore distinguished by symptoms characteristic of one of these conditions and not the other (e.g., dissociative amnesia in dissociative identity disorder and not in psychotic disorders). Finally, individuals with schizophrenia have low hypnotic capacity, whereas individuals with dissociative identity disorder have the highest hypnotic capacity among all clinical groups."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

"Individuals with dissociative identity disorder often present identities that appear to encapsulate a variety of severe personality disorder features, suggesting a differential diagnosis of personality disorder, especially of the borderline type. Importantly, however, the individual’s longitudinal variability in personality style (attributable to inconsistency among identities) differs from the pervasive and persistent dysfunction in affect management and interpersonal relationships typical of those with personality disorders."
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th-TR ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2022, doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Accessed 11 May 2026.

Co-Occurrence of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder
Comparing the symptoms and mechanisms of “dissociation” in dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder
Awareness of identity alteration and diagnostic preference between borderline personality disorder and dissociative disorders