The United States of Tara
Showtime
www.sho.com/site/tara/home.do
Spend half an hour with Tara, the beloved main character in the television series United States of Tara, and you’ll also meet beer-chugging “Buck,” demure “Alice,” reclusive “Gimme” and teen terror “T,” who steals skimpy tops from Tara’s daughter’s closet. They have little in common, except for their eyes, family and therapist. These eccentrics are all part of Tara’s personality—she suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID), a condition formerly known as multiple personality disorder, which may result from childhood trauma.

Each episode weaves Tara’s personalities into, and abruptly out of, everyday family life. One day Tara is dutifully driving her gay son to high school, and the next T is disturbingly making out with his unrequited crush. “It’s a reminder that the illness takes a toll on family and friends as much as it does the patient,” says David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Yet, he says, Hollywood has taken some liberties with this portrayal of DID. “My patients don’t change costumes when they go into other identities.”

The first season ended ominously. At a bowling alley, Tara leans on her husband’s shoulder as she watches her kids cheer each other on and says, “You know, it could get worse before it gets better.” She’s right. The more disturbed a patient is, the more fragments she’ll have, Spiegel explains. “The problem is not that patients have more than one identity but that they have fewer than one identity.” There’s no doubt Toni Collette, who won an Emmy for her portrayal, can deftly take on more characters this upcoming season, but can Tara?

8 Comments

1. 1. candide 10:25 AM 1/15/10

   Oh, sorry - I didn't realize this was a TV entertainment site, I (wrongly) expected science.

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2. 2. green ravi 01:27 PM 1/15/10

   Me, too. What the hell?

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3. 3. green ravi 01:27 PM 1/15/10

   Me, too. What the hell?

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4. 4. Hermit 05:36 PM 1/15/10

   I thought Multiple Personality Disorder had been debunked as manipulative behavior. "I didn't do it!" for example.
   
   Where's the data? Are we going to be speculating about Life After Death next?
   
   Hermit
   
   
   

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5. 5. alexoneal in reply to Hermit 07:28 PM 1/15/10

   It's not debunked in the least. The research is actually quite extensive. Difficulties lie not in the existence of the disorder, but in differential diagnosis and possible over-diagnosis of it in some cultures. Treatment is difficult, and depending on quality of life and degree of expression. Only about 1 in 10 sufferers express it as vividly as "Tara" - most conceal it, since it's a "pathology of hiddenness" and designed to conceal the truth of a trauma from not just the rest of the world, but the sufferer, if possible.

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6. 6. Bops 07:54 PM 1/16/10

   alexoneal,
   You are right. It's different behaviors of the same person. We all have different parts of our personality, these people are "Multi-Drama Queens" and use emotions to the extreme.
   I know more people who have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars going to different "doctors" to help understand and make sense of unwanted emotions. Each person has to decide what's best for them... medicine and some form of behavior therapy. Psychology (in excess) has been more damaging to people than in (obsessive) religion. They make it sound as though these people have five heads and no brains. The only thing that have been proven...is the damaging and confusing vocabulary psychologist love to use. Mental illness can get worst as people age. Damaged cells sometimes reproduce faster the healthy ones. Everyone is different. I sure the future will bring new help.

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7. 7. alexoneal in reply to Bops 08:18 PM 1/16/10

   I appreciate your comment. I agree it's different aspects of the same person: this is why psychologists use terms such as alter, parts, or fragment to refer to the apparent personalities, and aim for "integration" as a goal (where appropriate). But I do not believe "these people are "Multi-Drama Queens" and use emotions to the extreme." A better way to think of it might be this: trauma at an early age can be overwhelming. For any trauma sufferer (not just DID patients) the extremity of the feeling can leave a brain that is conditioned for similar extremity - it's not a choice or an attention-getter, it's a neurologically lower threshold for extreme emotional response, such as panic attacks.
   
   In some cases, children develop an adaptation to manage this: reduce the experience of this extremity away from their awareness through dissociation. In a few of those, repeated trauma, probably combined with the need for deception, results in completely shunting off the emotions into a persona. One useful aspect of this is that if you are a child who is traumatized and have to hide it for your own - or someone else's - well-being for some reason, it's much easier not to give the secret away if it's not in your awareness.
   
   Psychologists run the gamut from great to awful, so I can't defend them all. But I can say I've seen people greatly helped by psychologists and therapists whose goal was not prolonging therapy, but empowering another human with the support and tools to heal themselves.

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8. 8. brendonclark 04:42 AM 1/18/10

   Interesting comments. I've been in mental health in New Zealand for years now, and I would say that the diagnosis here would be extremely rare, if ever. Are we that different here? Experience less trauma? Doubt it. How much of this is believing is seeing? Promote an attitude, opinion, diagnosis well enough and someone will end up with it, right?

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