Schizophrenia not the same as multiple personalities
By LAUREN DAVIDSON and ROBERT BOXLEY

Confused and disordered thinking can happen to anyone, particularly at times of stress or when we are required to juggle many tasks at once. The human brain is not wired to truly multitask. When we try to accomplish multiple tasks at one time , our thoughts can become jumbled and the quality of what we are trying to do can suffer.

Imagine if your brain biochemistry also attempted to confuse and thwart your efforts to accomplish things. This is what people with serious thinking problems, such as schizophrenia, deal with on a regular basis. Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia often hear or see things that do not exist, believe things that aren't true, and may appear unemotional or disorganized. Despite what movies might lead us to believe, those with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities, though they may hear many different voices or see people that others do not.

That is not to say that people never have multiple personalities. This rare problem clearly exists; it is called Dissociative Identity Disorder. However, the disordered perceptions and beliefs that come with a thought disorder are much more common. People with dissociative identity disorder do not have hallucinations or delusional beliefs outside their multiple personalities or identities. The only voices they hear or talk to are these identities. Usually, they act like different people as well. In contrast, an individual with schizophrenia hears and sees things that do not exist and often are perceived to be outside themselves.

While schizophrenia is a result of misbehaving brain chemicals, multiple personalities usually are formed as a way to cope with serious trauma in one's life. One of the main consequences of these many personalities is that the person seems to "lose" time when one personality takes over; the individual tends to have no idea what has occurred. The central personality seems most likely to dissociate if they are exposed to another traumatic situation. For example, if the person is fearful of social events, a social personality will take over and become the life of the party. Treatment typically involves a long course of psychotherapy to help integrate all of the identities into the core personality.
Dissociative Identity Disorder has been portrayed as seeming to consist of a number of very distinct personalities, which is usually not the case. Rather, those with multiple personalities may pass from greater awareness to less without speaking in a different accent or assuming a completely separate identity.

In schizophrenia cases, medicinal, behavioral and therapeutic techniques have proven to be beneficial.