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Dissociative identity disorder

Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder, is one of multiple dissociative disorders in the DSM-5, DSM-5-TR, ICD-10, ICD-11, and Merck Manual. It has a history of extreme controversy.

Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The disorder is accompanied by memory gaps more severe than could be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. The personality states alternately influence a person's behavior, thoughts, perceptions, sensorimotor function, memory, identity, emotions, and body representation; however, presentations of the disorder can vary widely.

According to the DSM-5-TR, early childhood trauma, typically starting by 5–6 years of age, can place someone at risk of developing dissociative identity disorder. Across diverse geographic regions, 90% of individuals diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder report experiencing multiple forms of childhood abuse, such as rape, violence, neglect, or severe bullying. Other traumatic childhood experiences that have been reported include painful medical or surgical procedures, war,  terrorism,  attachment disturbance,  natural disaster, cult and occult abuse, loss of a loved one or loved ones, human trafficking,  and dysfunctional family dynamics.

There is no medication to treat DID directly. However, medications can be used for comorbid disorders or targeted symptom relief; for example, antidepressants for anxiety and depression, or sedative-hypnotics to improve sleep. Treatment generally involves supportive care and psychotherapy. The condition generally does not remit without treatment, and many patients have a lifelong course.

The condition is believed to affect 1.1–1.5% of the general population (based on multiple epidemiological studies) and 3.9% of those admitted to psychiatric hospitals in Europe and North America. DID is diagnosed about six times more often in women than in men.

The number of recorded cases increased significantly in the latter half of the 20th century, along with the number of identities reported by those affected. However, it is unclear whether increased rates of diagnosis are due to better recognition or sociocultural factors such as mass media portrayals. The typical presenting symptoms in different regions of the world may also vary depending on culture, such as alter identities taking the form of possessing spirits, deities, ghosts, or mythical creatures and figures in cultures where normative possession states are common.

Definitions
Dissociation, the term that underlies dissociative disorders including DID, lacks a precise, empirical, and generally agreed upon definition.

A large number of diverse experiences have been termed dissociative, ranging from normal failures in attention to the breakdowns in memory processes characterized by the dissociative disorders. 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 Ellert Nijenhuis and colleagues to distinguish dissociation they attribute to traumatic or pathological causes, which in turn is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary dissociation. According to this theory, primary dissociation prototypically involves one ANP and one EP, while secondary dissociation prototypically involves an ANP and at least two EPs, and tertiary dissociation, typically characterized in DID, is described as having at least two ANPs and at least two EPs. Efforts to psychometrically distinguish between normal and pathological dissociation have been made.

Signs and symptoms
The full presentation of dissociative identity disorder can onset at any age, although symptoms typically begin at ages 5–10. According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), symptoms of DID include "the presence of two or more distinct personality states" accompanied by the inability to recall personal information beyond what is expected through normal memory issues. Other DSM-5 symptoms include a loss of identity as related to individual distinct personality states, loss of one's subjective experience of the passage of time, and degradation of a sense of self and consciousness. In each individual, the clinical presentation varies and the level of functioning can change from severe impairment to minimal impairment. The symptoms of dissociative amnesia are subsumed under a DID diagnosis, and thus should not be diagnosed separately if DID criteria are met. Individuals with DID may experience distress from both the symptoms of DID (intrusive thoughts or emotions) and the consequences of the accompanying symptoms (dissociation rendering them unable to remember specific information). The large majority of patients with DID report childhood sexual and/or physical abuse. Amnesia between identities may be asymmetrical; identities may or may not be aware of what is known by another. Individuals with DID may be reluctant to discuss symptoms due to associations with abuse, shame, and fear. DID patients may also frequently and intensely experience time disturbances.

Around half of people with DID have fewer than 10 identities and most have fewer than 100; although as many as 4,500 have been reported. The average number of identities has increased over the past few decades, from two or three to now an average of approximately 16. However, it is unclear whether this is due to an actual increase in identities, or simply that the psychiatric community has become more accepting of a high number of compartmentalized memory components.

Comorbid disorders
The psychiatric history frequently contains multiple previous diagnoses of various disorders and treatment failures. The most common presenting complaint of DID is depression, with headaches being a common neurological symptom. Comorbid disorders can include substance use disorders, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. A significant percentage of those diagnosed with DID have histories of borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Presentations of dissociation in people with schizophrenia differ from those with DID as not being rooted in trauma, and this distinction can be effectively tested, although both conditions share a high rate of dissociative auditory hallucinations. Other disorders that have been found to be comorbid with DID are somatization disorders, major depressive disorder, as well as history of a past suicide attempt, in comparison to those without a DID diagnosis. Disturbed and altered sleep has also been suggested as having a role in dissociative disorders in general and specifically in DID, alterations in environments also largely affecting the DID patient. Individuals diagnosed with DID demonstrate the highest hypnotizability of any clinical population. Although DID has high comorbidity and its development is related to trauma, there exists evidence to suggest that DID merits a separate diagnosis from other conditions like PTSD.

General
There are two competing theories on what causes dissociative identity disorder to develop. The trauma-related model suggests that trauma or severe adversity in childhood, also known as developmental trauma, increases the risk of someone developing dissociative identity disorder. The non-trauma related model, also referred to as the Sociocognitive model or the fantasy model, suggests that dissociative identity disorder is developed through high fantasy-proneness or suggestibility, roleplaying, or sociocultural influences.

The DSM-5-TR states that "early life trauma (e.g., neglect and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, usually before ages 5-6 years) represents a risk factor for dissociative identity disorder." Other risk factors reported include painful medical procedures, war, terrorism, or being trafficked in childhood. Dissociative disorders frequently occur after trauma, and the DSM-5-TR places them after the trauma- and stressor-related disorders to reflect this close relationship.

Traumagenic model
Dissociative identity disorder is often conceptualized as "the most severe form of a childhood-onset post-traumatic stress disorder." According to many researchers, the etiology of dissociative identity is multifactorial, involving a complex interaction between developmental trauma, sociocultural influences, and biological factors.

People diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder often report that they have experienced physical or sexual abuse during childhood (although the accuracy of these reports has been disputed ); others report overwhelming stress, serious medical illness, or other traumatic events during childhood. They also report more historical psychological trauma than those diagnosed with any other mental illness.

Severe sexual, physical, or psychological trauma in childhood has been proposed as an explanation for its development; awareness, memories, and emotions of harmful actions or events caused by the trauma are removed from consciousness, and alternate personalities or subpersonalities form with differing memories, emotions and behavior. Dissociative identity disorder is attributed to extremes of stress or disorders of attachment. What may be expressed as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults may become dissociative identity disorder when occurring in children, possibly due to their greater use of imagination as a form of coping.

Possibly due to developmental changes and a more coherent sense of self past the age of six, the experience of extreme trauma may result in different, though also complex, dissociative symptoms and identity disturbances. A specific relationship between childhood abuse, disorganized attachment, and lack of social support are thought to be a necessary component of dissociative identity disorder. Although what role a child's biological capacity to dissociate to an extreme level remains unclear, some evidence indicates a neurobiological impact of developmental stress.

Delinking early trauma from the etiology of dissociation has been explicitly rejected by those supporting the early trauma model. However, a 2012 review article supports the hypothesis that current or recent trauma may affect an individual's assessment of the more distant past, changing the experience of the past and resulting in dissociative states. Giesbrecht et al. have suggested there is no actual empirical evidence linking early trauma to dissociation, and instead suggest that problems with neuropsychological functioning, such as increased distractibility in response to certain emotions and contexts, account for dissociative features. A middle position hypothesizes that trauma, in some situations, alters neuronal mechanisms related to memory. Evidence is increasing that dissociative disorders are related both to a trauma history and to "specific neural mechanisms". It has also been suggested that there may be a genuine but more modest link between trauma and dissociative identity disorder, with early trauma causing increased fantasy-proneness, which may in turn render individuals more vulnerable to socio-cognitive influences surrounding the development of dissociative identity disorder. Another suggestion made by Hart indicates that there are triggers in the brain that can be the catalyst for different self-states, and that victims of trauma are more susceptible to these triggers than non-victims of trauma; these triggers are said to be related to dissociative identity disorder.

Paris states that the trauma model of dissociative identity disorder increased the appeal of the diagnosis among health care providers, patients and the public as it validated the idea that child abuse had lifelong, serious effects. Paris asserts that there is very little experimental evidence supporting the trauma-dissociation hypothesis, and no research showing that dissociation consistently links to long-term memory disruption.

Neuroimaging studies have reported a consistently smaller volume of the hippocampus in DID patients, supporting the trauma model.

Sociogenic model
Symptoms of dissociative identity disorder may be created by therapists using techniques to "recover" memories (such as the use of hypnosis to "access" alter identities, facilitate age regression or retrieve memories) on suggestible individuals. Referred to as the non-trauma-related model, or the sociocognitive model or fantasy model, it proposes that dissociative identity disorder is due to a person consciously or unconsciously behaving in certain ways promoted by cultural stereotypes, with unwitting therapists providing cues through improper therapeutic techniques. This model posits that behavior is enhanced by media portrayals of dissociative identity disorder.

Proponents of the non-trauma-related model note that the dissociative symptoms are rarely present before intensive therapy by specialists in the treatment of dissociative identity disorder who, through the process of eliciting, conversing with, and identifying alters, shape or possibly create the diagnosis. While proponents note that dissociative identity disorder is accompanied by genuine suffering and the distressing symptoms, and can be diagnosed reliably using the DSM criteria, they are skeptical of the trauma-related etiology suggested by proponents of the trauma-related model. Proponents of non-trauma-related dissociative identity disorder are concerned about the possibility of hypnotizability, suggestibility, frequent fantasization and mental absorption predisposing individuals to dissociation. They note that a small subset of doctors are responsible for diagnosing the majority of individuals with dissociative identity disorder.

Psychologist Nicholas Spanos and others have suggested that in addition to therapy-caused cases, dissociative identity disorder may be the result of role-playing, though others disagree, pointing to a lack of incentive to manufacture or maintain separate identities and point to the claimed histories of abuse. Other arguments that therapy can cause dissociative identity disorder include the lack of children diagnosed with DID, the sudden spike in rates of diagnosis after 1980 (although dissociative identity disorder was not a diagnosis until DSM-IV, published in 1994), the absence of evidence of increased rates of child abuse, the appearance of the disorder almost exclusively in individuals undergoing psychotherapy, particularly involving hypnosis, the presences of bizarre alternate identities (such as those claiming to be animals or mythological creatures) and an increase in the number of alternate identities over time (as well as an initial increase in their number as psychotherapy begins in DID-oriented therapy ). These various cultural and therapeutic causes occur within a context of pre-existing psychopathology, notably borderline personality disorder, which is commonly comorbid with dissociative identity disorder. In addition, presentations can vary across cultures, such as Indian patients who only switch alters after a period of sleep – which is commonly how dissociative identity disorder is presented by the media within that country.

Proponents of non-trauma-related dissociative identity disorder state that the disorder is strongly linked to (possibly suggestive) psychotherapy, often involving recovered memories (memories that the person previously had amnesia for) or false memories, and that such therapy could cause additional identities. Such memories could be used to make an allegation of child sexual abuse. There is little agreement between those who see therapy as a cause and trauma as a cause. Supporters of therapy as a cause of dissociative identity disorder suggest that a small number of clinicians diagnosing a disproportionate number of cases would provide evidence for their position though it has also been claimed that higher rates of diagnosis in specific countries like the United States may be due to greater awareness of DID. Lower rates in other countries may be due to artificially low recognition of the diagnosis. However, false memory syndrome per se is not regarded by mental health experts as a valid diagnosis, and has been described as "a non-psychological term originated by a private foundation whose stated purpose is to support accused parents," and critics argue that the concept has no empirical support, and further describe the False Memory Syndrome Foundation as an advocacy group that has distorted and misrepresented memory research.

Children
The rarity of DID diagnoses in children is cited as a reason to doubt the validity of the disorder, and proponents of both etiologies believe that the discovery of dissociative identity disorder in a child who had never undergone treatment would critically undermine the non-trauma related model. Conversely, if children are found to develop dissociative identity disorder only after undergoing treatment it would challenge the trauma-related model. , approximately 250 cases of dissociative identity disorder in children have been identified, though the data does not offer unequivocal support for either theory. While children have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder before therapy, several were presented to clinicians by parents who were themselves diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder; others were influenced by the appearance of dissociative identity disorder in popular culture or due to a diagnosis of psychosis due to hearing voices – a symptom also found in dissociative identity disorder. No studies have looked for children with dissociative identity disorder in the general population, and the single study that attempted to look for children with dissociative identity disorder not already in therapy did so by examining siblings of those already in therapy for dissociative identity disorder. An analysis of diagnosis of children reported in scientific publications, 44 case studies of single patients were found to be evenly distributed (i.e., each case study was reported by a different author) but in articles regarding groups of patients, four researchers were responsible for the majority of the reports.

The initial theoretical description of dissociative identity disorder was that dissociative symptoms were a means of coping with extreme stress (particularly childhood sexual and physical abuse), but this belief has been challenged by the data of multiple research studies. Proponents of the trauma-related model claim the high correlation of child sexual and physical abuse reported by adults with dissociative identity disorder corroborates the link between trauma and dissociative identity disorder. However, the link between dissociative identity disorder and maltreatment has been questioned for several reasons. The studies reporting the links often rely on self-report rather than independent corroborations, and these results may be worsened by selection and referral bias. Most studies of trauma and dissociation are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, which means researchers can not attribute causation, and studies avoiding recall bias have failed to corroborate such a causal link. In addition, studies rarely control for the many disorders comorbid with dissociative identity disorder, or family maladjustment (which is itself highly correlated with dissociative identity disorder). The popular association of dissociative identity disorder with childhood abuse is relatively recent, occurring only after the publication of Sybil in 1973. Most previous examples of "multiples" such as Chris Costner Sizemore, whose life was depicted in the book and film The Three Faces of Eve, reported no memory of childhood trauma.

Pathophysiology
Despite research on DID including structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography, event-related potentials, and electroencephalography, no convergent neuroimaging findings have been identified regarding DID, with the exception of smaller hippocampal volume in DID patients. In addition, many of the studies that do exist were performed from an explicitly trauma-based position. There is no research to date regarding the neuroimaging and introduction of false memories in DID patients, though there is evidence of changes in visual parameters and support for amnesia between alters. DID patients also appear to show deficiencies in tests of conscious control of attention and memorization (which also showed signs of compartmentalization for implicit memory between alters but no such compartmentalization for verbal memory) and increased and persistent vigilance and startle responses to sound. DID patients may also demonstrate altered neuroanatomy.

General
The fifth, revised edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnoses DID according to the diagnostic criteria found under code 300.14 (dissociative disorders). DID is often initially misdiagnosed because clinicians receive little training about dissociative disorders or DID, and often use standard diagnostic interviews that do not include questions about trauma, dissociation, or post-traumatic symptoms. This contributes to difficulties diagnosing the disorder, and to clinician bias.

DID is rarely diagnosed in children, despite the average age of appearance of the first alter being three years old. The criteria require that an individual be recurrently controlled by two or more discrete identities or personality states, accompanied by memory lapses for important information that is not caused by alcohol, drugs or medications and other medical conditions such as complex partial seizures. In children the symptoms must not be better explained by "imaginary playmates or other fantasy play". Diagnosis is normally performed by a clinically trained mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or psychologist through clinical evaluation, interviews with family and friends, and consideration of other ancillary material. Specially designed interviews (such as the SCID-D) and personality assessment tools may be used in the evaluation as well. Since most of the symptoms depend on self-report and are not concrete and observable, there is a degree of subjectivity in making the diagnosis. People are often disinclined to seek treatment, especially since their symptoms may not be taken seriously; thus dissociative disorders have been referred to as "diseases of hiddenness".

The diagnosis has been criticized by supporters of therapy as a cause or the sociocognitive hypothesis as they believe it is a culture-bound and often health care induced condition. The social cues involved in diagnosis may be instrumental in shaping patient behavior or attribution, such that symptoms within one context may be linked to DID, while in another time or place the diagnosis could have been something other than DID. Other researchers disagree and argue that the existence of the condition and its inclusion in the DSM is supported by multiple lines of reliable evidence, with diagnostic criteria allowing it to be clearly discriminated from conditions it is often mistaken for (schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and seizure disorder). That a large proportion of cases are diagnosed by specific health care providers, and that symptoms have been created in nonclinical research subjects given appropriate cueing has been suggested as evidence that a small number of clinicians who specialize in DID are responsible for the creation of alters through therapy. The condition may be under-diagnosed due to skepticism and lack of awareness from mental health professionals, made difficult due to the lack of specific and reliable criteria for diagnosing DID as well as a lack of prevalence rates due to the failure to examine systematically selected and representative populations.

Differential diagnoses
Patients with DID are diagnosed with 5-7 comorbid disorders on average – much higher than other mental illnesses.

Due to overlapping symptoms, the differential diagnosis includes schizophrenia, normal and rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, epilepsy, borderline personality disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Delusions or auditory hallucinations can be mistaken for speech by other personalities. Persistence and consistency of identities and behavior, amnesia, measures of dissociation or hypnotizability and reports from family members or other associates indicating a history of such changes can help distinguish DID from other conditions. A diagnosis of DID takes precedence over any other dissociative disorders. Distinguishing DID from malingering is a concern when financial or legal gains are an issue, and factitious disorder may also be considered if the person has a history of help or attention-seeking. Individuals who state that their symptoms are due to external spirits or entities entering their bodies are generally diagnosed with dissociative disorder not otherwise specified rather than DID due to the lack of identities or personality states. Most individuals who enter an emergency department and are unaware of their names are generally in a psychotic state. Although auditory hallucinations are common in DID, complex visual hallucinations may also occur. Those with DID generally have adequate reality testing; they may have positive Schneiderian symptoms of schizophrenia but lack the negative symptoms. They perceive any voices heard as coming from inside their heads (patients with schizophrenia experience them as external). In addition, individuals with psychosis are much less susceptible to hypnosis than those with DID. Difficulties in differential diagnosis are increased in children.

DID must be distinguished from, or determined if comorbid with, a variety of disorders including mood disorders, psychosis, anxiety disorders, PTSD, personality disorders, cognitive disorders, neurological disorders, epilepsy, somatoform disorder, factitious disorder, malingering, other dissociative disorders, and trance states. An additional aspect of the controversy of diagnosis is that there are many forms of dissociation and memory lapses, which can be common in both stressful and nonstressful situations and can be attributed to much less controversial diagnoses.

A relationship between DID and borderline personality disorder has been posited, with various clinicians noting overlap between symptoms and behaviors and it has been suggested that some cases of DID may arise "from a substrate of borderline traits". Reviews of DID patients and their medical records concluded that the majority of those diagnosed with DID would also meet the criteria for either borderline personality disorder or more generally borderline personality.

The DSM-5 elaborates on cultural background as an influence for some presentations of DID.

"Many features of dissociative identity disorder can be influenced by the individual's cultural background. Individuals with this disorder may present with prominent medically unexplained neurological symptoms, such as non-epileptic seizures, paralyses, or sensory loss, in cultural settings where such symptoms are common. Similarly, in settings where normative possession is common (e.g., rural areas in the developing world, among certain religious groups in the United States and Europe), the fragmented identities may take the form of possessing spirits, deities, demons, animals, or mythical figures. Acculturation or prolonged intercultural contact may shape the characteristics of other identities (e.g., identities in India may speak English exclusively and wear Western clothes). Possession-form dissociative identity disorder can be distinguished from culturally accepted possession states in that the former is involuntary, distressing, uncontrollable, and often recurrent or persistent; involves conflict between the individual and his or her surrounding family, social, or work milieu; and is manifested at times and in places that violate the norms of the culture or religion."

Controversy and criticism of validity
DID is among the most controversial of the dissociative disorders and among the most controversial disorders found in the DSM-5. The primary dispute is between those who believe DID is caused by traumatic stresses forcing the mind to split into multiple identities, each with a separate set of memories, and the belief that the symptoms of DID are produced artificially by certain psychotherapeutic practices or patients playing a role they believe appropriate for a person with DID. The debate between the two positions is characterized by intense disagreement. Research into this hypothesis has been characterized by poor methodology. Psychiatrist Joel Paris notes that the idea that a personality is capable of splitting into independent alters is an unproven assertion that is at odds with research in cognitive psychology.

Some people, such as Russell A. Powell and Travis L. Gee, believe that DID is caused by health care, i.e. symptoms of DID are created by therapists themselves via hypnosis. This belief also implies that those with DID are more susceptible to manipulation by hypnosis and suggestion than others. The iatrogenic model also sometimes states that treatment for DID is harmful. According to Brand, Loewenstein, and Spiegel, "[t]he claims that DID treatment is harmful are based on anecdotal cases, opinion pieces, reports of damage that are not substantiated in the scientific literature, misrepresentations of the data, and misunderstandings about DID treatment and the phenomenology of DID". Their claim is evidenced by the fact that only 5%–10% of people receiving treatment initially worsen in their symptoms.

Psychiatrists August Piper and Harold Merskey have challenged the trauma hypothesis, arguing that correlation does not imply causation – the fact that people with DID report childhood trauma does not mean trauma causes DID – and point to the rareness of the diagnosis before 1980 as well as a failure to find DID as an outcome in longitudinal studies of traumatized children. They assert that DID cannot be accurately diagnosed because of vague and unclear diagnostic criteria in the DSM and undefined concepts such as "personality state" and "identities", and question the evidence for childhood abuse beyond self-reports, the lack of definition of what would indicate a threshold of abuse sufficient to induce DID and the extremely small number of cases of children diagnosed with DID despite an average age of appearance of the first alter of three years. Psychiatrist Colin Ross disagrees with Piper and Merskey's conclusion that DID cannot be accurately diagnosed, pointing to internal consistency between different structured dissociative disorder interviews (including the Dissociative Experiences Scale, Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule and Structured Clinical Interview for Dissociative Disorders) that are in the internal validity range of widely accepted mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. In his opinion, Piper and Merskey are setting the standard of proof higher than they are for other diagnoses. He also asserts that Piper and Merskey have cherry-picked data and not incorporated all relevant scientific literature available, such as independent corroborating evidence of trauma.

A paper published in 2022 in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry described how prolonged social media use, especially on video-sharing platforms including TikTok, has exposed young people, largely adolescent females, a core user group of TikTok, to a growing number of content creators making videos about their self-diagnosed disorders. "An increasing number of reports from the US, UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia have noted an increase in functional tic-like behaviors prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with an increase in social media content related to[…]dissociative identity disorder." The paper concluded by saying there "is an urgent need for focused empirical research investigation into this concerning phenomenon that is related to the broader research and discourse examining social media influences on mental health".

Screening
Perhaps due to their perceived rarity, the dissociative disorders (including DID) were not initially included in the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID), which is designed to make psychiatric diagnoses more rigorous and reliable. Instead, shortly after the publication of the initial SCID a freestanding protocol for dissociative disorders (SCID-D) was published. This interview takes about 30 to 90 minutes depending on the subject's experiences. An alternative diagnostic instrument, the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, also exists but the SCID-D is generally considered the gold standard. The Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS) is a highly structured interview that discriminates among various DSM-IV diagnoses. The DDIS can usually be administered in 30–45 minutes.

Other questionnaires include the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), Perceptual Alterations Scale, Questionnaire on Experiences of Dissociation, Dissociation Questionnaire, and the Mini-SCIDD. All are strongly intercorrelated and except the Mini-SCIDD, all incorporate absorption, a normal part of personality involving narrowing or broadening of attention. The DES is a simple, quick, and validated questionnaire that has been widely used to screen for dissociative symptoms, with variations for children and adolescents. Tests such as the DES provide a quick method of screening subjects so that the more time-consuming structured clinical interview can be used in the group with high DES scores. Depending on where the cutoff is set, people who would subsequently be diagnosed can be missed. An early recommended cutoff was 15–20. The reliability of the DES in non-clinical samples has been questioned.

Treatment under the sociogenic model
Proponents of the sociogenic model dispute that dissociative identity disorder is an organic response to trauma, but believe it is a socially constructed behavior and psychic contagion. McHugh says that the disorder is "sustained in large part by the attention that doctors tend to pay to it. This means that it is not a mental condition that derives from nature, such as panic anxiety or major depression. It exists in the world as an artificial product of human devising".

According to McHugh, at Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors should ignore the displays from "alters", and instead focus on treatment for other psychiatric problems patients present with. This method of treatment is reportedly successful: "What surprises many people is that multiple personalities tend to fall away quickly when ignored. Usually on our anorexia nervosa floor, patients who entered with MPD [multiple personality disorder] cease discussing their alters within a few days and often report that after a week or two of recovering their body weight and attending group therapy tied to their eating disorder, the ideas and preoccupations with their “alters” gradually vanished from their thinking."

McHugh believes that proponents of Dissociative Identity Disorder inadvertently worsen patient condition by validating the alters and providing attention to them.

Treatments under the trauma model
The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, proponents of the trauma model, have published guidelines for phase-oriented treatment in adults as well as children and adolescents that are widely used successfully in the field of DID treatment. The guidelines state that "a desirable treatment outcome is a workable form of integration or harmony among alternate identities". Some experts in treating people with DID use the techniques recommended in the 2011 treatment guidelines. The empirical research includes the longitudinal TOP DD treatment study, which found that patients showed "statistically significant reductions in dissociation, PTSD, distress, depression, hospitalisations, suicide attempts, self-harm, dangerous behaviours, drug use, and physical pain" and improved overall functioning. Treatment effects have been studied for over thirty years, with some studies having a follow-up of ten years. Adult and child treatment guidelines exist that suggest a three-phased approach, and are based on expert consensus.

Common treatment methods include an eclectic mix of psychotherapy techniques, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), insight-oriented therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), hypnotherapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

Hypnosis should be carefully considered when choosing both treatment and provider practitioners because of its dangers. For example, hypnosis can sometimes lead to false memories and false accusations of abuse by family, loved ones, friends, providers, and community members. Those who suffer from dissociative identity disorder have commonly been subject to actual abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, financial) by therapists, family, friends, loved ones, and community members.

Some behavior therapists initially use behavioral treatments such as only responding to a single identity, and then use more traditional therapy once a consistent response is established. Brief treatment due to managed care may be difficult, as individuals diagnosed with DID may have unusual difficulties in trusting a therapist and take a prolonged period to form a comfortable therapeutic alliance. Regular contact (at least weekly) is recommended, and treatment generally lasts years – not weeks or months. Sleep hygiene has been suggested as a treatment option, but has not been tested. In general there are very few clinical trials on the treatment of DID, none of which were randomized controlled trials.

Therapy for DID is generally phase oriented. Different alters may appear based on their greater ability to deal with specific situational stresses or threats. While some patients may initially present with a large number of alters, this number may reduce during treatment – though it is considered important for the therapist to become familiar with at least the more prominent personality states as the "host" personality may not be the "true" identity of the patient. Specific alters may react negatively to therapy, fearing the therapist's goal is to eliminate the alter (particularly those associated with illegal or violent activities). A more realistic and appropriate goal of treatment is to integrate adaptive responses to abuse, injury, or other threats into the overall personality structure.

The first phase of therapy focuses on symptoms and relieving the distressing aspects of the condition, ensuring the safety of the individual, improving the patient's capacity to form and maintain healthy relationships, and improving general daily life functioning. Comorbid disorders such as substance use disorder and eating disorders are addressed in this phase of treatment. The second phase focuses on stepwise exposure to traumatic memories and prevention of re-dissociation. The final phase focuses on reconnecting the identities of disparate alters into a single functioning identity with all its memories and experiences intact.

Prognosis
Little is known about prognosis of untreated DID. It rarely, if ever, remits without treatment, but symptoms commonly wax and wane over time. Patients with mainly dissociative and post-traumatic symptoms face a better prognosis than those with comorbid disorders or those still in contact with abusers, and the latter groups often face a lengthier and more difficult treatment course. Suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and self-harm are common in the DID population. Duration of treatment can vary depending on patient goals, which can range from merely improving inter-alter communication and cooperation, to reducing inter-alter amnesia, to integration and fusion of all alters, but this last goal generally takes years, with trained and experienced psychotherapists.

General
According to the American Psychiatric Association, the 12-month prevalence of DID among adults in the US is 1.5%, with similar prevalence between women and men. Population prevalence estimates have been described to widely vary, with some estimates of DID in inpatient settings suggesting 1-9.6%." Reported rates in the community vary from 1% to 3% with higher rates among psychiatric patients. As of 2017, evidence suggested a prevalence of DID of 2–5% among psychiatric inpatients, 2–3% among outpatients, and 1% in the general population, with rates reported as high as 16.4% for teenagers in psychiatric outpatient services. Dissociative disorders in general have a lifetime prevalence of 9.1%–18.3% in the general population.

As of 2012, DID was diagnosed 5 to 9 times more common in women than men during young adulthood, although this may have been due to selection bias as men meeting DID diagnostic criteria were suspected to end up in the criminal justice system rather than hospitals. In children, rates among men and women are approximately the same (5:4). DID diagnoses are extremely rare in children; much of the research on childhood DID occurred in the 1980s and 1990s and does not address ongoing controversies surrounding the diagnosis. DID occurs more commonly in young adults and declines in prevalence with age.

There is a poor awareness of DID in the clinical settings and the general public. Poor clinical education (or lack thereof) for DID and other dissociative disorders has been described in literature: "most clinicians have been taught (or assume) that DID is a rare disorder with a florid, dramatic presentation." Symptoms in patients are often not easily visible, which complicates diagnosis. DID has a high correlation with, and has been described as a form of, complex post-traumatic stress disorder. There is a significant overlap of symptoms between borderline personality disorder and DID, although symptoms are understood to originate from different underlying causes.

Historical prevalence
Rates of diagnosed DID were increasing in the late 20th century, reaching a peak of diagnoses at approximately 40,000 cases by the end of the 20th century, up from less than 200 diagnoses before 1970. Initially DID along with the rest of the dissociative disorders were considered the rarest of psychological conditions, diagnosed in less than 100 by 1944, with only one further case reported in the next two decades. In the late 1970s and '80s, the number of diagnoses rose sharply. An estimate from the 1980s placed the incidence at 0.01%. Accompanying this rise was an increase in the number of alters, rising from only the primary and one alter personality in most cases, to an average of 13 in the mid-1980s (the increase in both number of cases and number of alters within each case are both factors in professional skepticism regarding the diagnosis). Others explain the increase as being due to the use of inappropriate therapeutic techniques in highly suggestible individuals, though this is itself controversial while proponents of DID claim the increase in incidence is due to increased recognition of and ability to recognize the disorder. Figures from psychiatric populations (inpatients and outpatients) show a wide diversity from different countries.

A 1996 essay suggested three possible causes for the sudden increase of DID diagnoses, among which the author suspects the first being most likely:

Dissociative disorders were excluded from the Epidemiological Catchment Area Project.
 * 1) The result of therapist suggestions to suggestible people, much as Charcot's hysterics acted in accordance with his expectations.
 * 2) Psychiatrists' past failure to recognize dissociation being redressed by new training and knowledge.
 * 3) Dissociative phenomena are actually increasing, but this increase only represents a new form of an old and protean entity: "hysteria".

North America
DID continues to be considered a controversial diagnosis; it was once regarded as a phenomenon confined to North America, though studies have since been published from DID populations across 6 continents. Although research has appeared discussing the appearance of DID in other countries and cultures and the condition has been described in non-English speaking nations and non-Western cultures, these reports all occur in English-language journals authored by international researchers who cite Western scientific literature. Etzel Cardeña and David Gleaves believed the greater representation of DID in North America was the result of increased awareness and training about the condition.

Early references
In the 19th century, "dédoublement", or "double consciousness", the historical precursor to DID, was frequently described as a state of sleepwalking, with scholars hypothesizing that the patients were switching between a normal consciousness and a "somnambulistic state".

An intense interest in spiritualism, parapsychology and hypnosis continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, running in parallel with John Locke's views that there was an association of ideas requiring the coexistence of feelings with awareness of the feelings. Hypnosis, which was pioneered in the late 18th century by Franz Mesmer and Armand-Marie Jacques de Chastenet, Marques de Puységur, challenged Locke's association of ideas. Hypnotists reported what they thought were second personalities emerging during hypnosis and wondered how two minds could coexist.

In the 19th century, there were a number of reported cases of multiple personalities which Rieber estimated would be close to 100. Epilepsy was seen as a factor in some cases, and discussion of this connection continues into the present era.

By the late 19th century, there was a general acceptance that emotionally traumatic experiences could cause long-term disorders which might display a variety of symptoms. These conversion disorders were found to occur in even the most resilient individuals, but with profound effect in someone with emotional instability like Louis Vivet (1863–?), who had a traumatic experience as a 17-year-old when he encountered a viper. Vivet was the subject of countless medical papers and became the most studied case of dissociation in the 19th century.

Between 1880 and 1920, various international medical conferences devoted time to sessions on dissociation. It was in this climate that Jean-Martin Charcot introduced his ideas of the impact of nervous shocks as a cause for a variety of neurological conditions. One of Charcot's students, Pierre Janet, took these ideas and went on to develop his own theories of dissociation. One of the first individuals diagnosed with multiple personalities to be scientifically studied was Clara Norton Fowler, under the pseudonym Christine Beauchamp; American neurologist Morton Prince studied Fowler between 1898 and 1904, describing her case study in his 1906 monograph, Dissociation of a Personality.

20th century
In the early 20th century, interest in dissociation and multiple personalities waned for several reasons. After Charcot's death in 1893, many of his so-called hysterical patients were exposed as frauds, and Janet's association with Charcot tarnished his theories of dissociation. Sigmund Freud recanted his earlier emphasis on dissociation and childhood trauma.

In 1908, Eugen Bleuler introduced the term "schizophrenia" to represent a revised disease concept for Emil Kraepelin's dementia praecox. Whereas Kraepelin's natural disease entity was anchored in the metaphor of progressive deterioration and mental weakness and defect, Bleuler offered a reinterpretation based on dissociation or "splitting" (Spaltung) and widely broadened the inclusion criteria for the diagnosis. A review of the Index medicus from 1903 through 1978 showed a dramatic decline in the number of reports of multiple personality after the diagnosis of schizophrenia became popular, especially in the United States. The rise of the broad diagnostic category of dementia praecox has also been posited in the disappearance of "hysteria" (the usual diagnostic designation for cases of multiple personalities) by 1910. A number of factors helped create a large climate of skepticism and disbelief; paralleling the increased suspicion of DID was the decline of interest in dissociation as a laboratory and clinical phenomenon.

Starting in about 1927, there was a large increase in the number of reported cases of schizophrenia, which was matched by an equally large decrease in the number of multiple personality reports. With the rise of a uniquely American reframing of dementia praecox/schizophrenia as a functional disorder or "reaction" to psychobiological stressors – a theory first put forth by Adolf Meyer in 1906—many trauma-induced conditions associated with dissociation, including "shell shock" or "war neuroses" during World War I, were subsumed under these diagnoses. It was argued in the 1980s that DID patients were often misdiagnosed with schizophrenia.

The public, however, was exposed to psychological ideas which took their interest. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and many short stories by Edgar Allan Poe had a formidable impact.

The Three Faces of Eve
In 1957, with the publication of the bestselling book The Three Faces of Eve by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, based on a case study of their patient Chris Costner Sizemore, and the subsequent popular movie of the same name, the American public's interest in multiple personality was revived. More cases of dissociative identity disorder were diagnosed in the following years. The cause of the sudden increase of cases is indefinite, but it may be attributed to the increased awareness, which revealed previously undiagnosed cases or new cases may have been induced by the influence of the media on the behavior of individuals and the judgement of therapists. During the 1970s an initially small number of clinicians campaigned to have it considered a legitimate diagnosis.

History in the DSM
The DSM-II used the term hysterical neurosis, dissociative type. It described the possible occurrence of alterations in the patient's state of consciousness or identity, and included the symptoms of "amnesia, somnambulism, fugue, and multiple personality". The DSM-III grouped the diagnosis with the other four major dissociative disorders using the term "multiple personality disorder". The DSM-IV made more changes to DID than any other dissociative disorder, and renamed it DID. The name was changed for two reasons: First, the change emphasizes the main problem is not a multitude of personalities, but rather a lack of a single, unified identity and an emphasis on "the identities as centers of information processing". Second, the term "personality" is used to refer to "characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, moods, and behaviors of the whole individual", while for a patient with DID, the switches between identities and behavior patterns is the personality. It is, for this reason, the DSM-IV-TR referred to "distinct identities or personality states" instead of personalities. The diagnostic criteria also changed to indicate that while the patient may name and personalize alters, they lack independent, objective existence. The changes also included the addition of amnesia as a symptom, which was not included in the DSM-III-R because despite being a core symptom of the condition, patients may experience "amnesia for the amnesia" and fail to report it. Amnesia was replaced when it became clear that the risk of false negative diagnoses was low because amnesia was central to DID.

The ICD-10 places the diagnosis in the category of "dissociative disorders", within the subcategory of "other dissociative (conversion) disorders", but continues to list the condition as multiple personality disorder.

The DSM-IV-TR criteria for DID have been criticized for failing to capture the clinical complexity of DID, lacking usefulness in diagnosing individuals with DID (for instance, by focusing on the two least frequent and most subtle symptoms of DID) producing a high rate of false negatives and an excessive number of DDNOS diagnoses, for excluding possession (seen as a cross-cultural form of DID), and for including only two "core" symptoms of DID (amnesia and self-alteration) while failing to discuss hallucinations, trance-like states, somatoform, depersonalization, and derealization symptoms. Arguments have been made for allowing diagnosis through the presence of some, but not all of the characteristics of DID rather than the current exclusive focus on the two least common and noticeable features. The DSM-IV-TR criteria have also been criticized for being tautological, using imprecise and undefined language and for the use of instruments that give a false sense of validity and empirical certainty to the diagnosis.

The DSM-5 updated the definition of DID in 2013, summarizing the changes as:

"Several changes to the criteria for dissociative identity disorder have been made in DSM-5. First, Criterion A has been expanded to include certain possession-form phenomena and functional neurological symptoms to account for more diverse presentations of the disorder. Second, Criterion A now specifically states that transitions in identity may be observable by others or self-reported. Third, according to Criterion B, individuals with dissociative identity disorder may have recurrent gaps in recall for everyday events, not just for traumatic experiences. Other text modifications clarify the nature and course of identity disruptions."

Between 1968 and 1980, the term that was used for dissociative identity disorder was "Hysterical neurosis, dissociative type". The APA wrote in the second edition of the DSM: "In the dissociative type, alterations may occur in the patient's state of consciousness or in his identity, to produce such symptoms as amnesia, somnambulism, fugue, and multiple personality." The number of cases sharply increased in the late 1970s and throughout the 80s, and the first scholarly monographs on the topic appeared in 1986.

Book and film Sybil
In 1974, the highly influential book Sybil was published, and later made into a miniseries in 1976 and again in 2007. Describing what Robert Rieber called "the third most famous of multiple personality cases," it presented a detailed discussion of the problems of treatment of "Sybil Isabel Dorsett", a pseudonym for Shirley Ardell Mason.

Though the book and subsequent films helped popularize the diagnosis and trigger an epidemic of the diagnosis, later analysis of the case suggested different interpretations, ranging from Mason's problems having been caused by the therapeutic methods and sodium pentathol injections used by her psychiatrist, C. B. Wilbur, or an inadvertent hoax due in part to the lucrative publishing rights, though this conclusion has itself been challenged.

David Spiegel, a Stanford psychiatrist whose father treated Shirley Ardell Mason on occasion, says that his father described Mason as "a brilliant hysteric. He felt that Wilbur tended to pressure her to exaggerate on the dissociation she already had." As media attention on DID increased, so too did the controversy surrounding the diagnosis.

Re-classifications
The DSM-III intentionally omitted the terms "hysteria" and "neurosis", naming those as Dissociative Disorders, which included Multiple Personality Disorder, and also added Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Anxiety Disorders section.

In the opinion of McGill University psychiatrist Joel Paris, this inadvertently legitimized them by forcing textbooks, which mimicked the structure of the DSM, to include a separate chapter on them and resulted in an increase in diagnosis of dissociative conditions. Once a rarely occurring spontaneous phenomenon (research in 1944 showed only 76 cases), the diagnosis became "an artifact of bad (or naïve) psychotherapy" as patients capable of dissociating were accidentally encouraged to express their symptoms by "overly fascinated" therapists.

In a 1986 book chapter (later reprinted in another volume), philosopher of science Ian Hacking focused on multiple personality disorder as an example of "making up people" through the untoward effects on individuals of the "dynamic nominalism" in medicine and psychiatry. With the invention of new terms, entire new categories of "natural kinds" of people are assumed to be created, and those thus diagnosed respond by re-creating their identity in light of the new cultural, medical, scientific, political and moral expectations. Hacking argued that the process of "making up people" is historically contingent, hence it is not surprising to find the rise, fall, and resurrection of such categories over time. Hacking revisited his concept of "making up people" in a 2006.

"Interpersonality amnesia" was removed as a diagnostic feature from the DSM III in 1987, which may have contributed to the increasing frequency of the diagnosis. There were 200 reported cases of DID as of 1980, and 20,000 from 1980 to 1990. Joan Acocella reports that 40,000 cases were diagnosed from 1985 to 1995. Scientific publications regarding DID peaked in the mid-1990s then rapidly declined.

There were several contributing factors to the rapid decline of reports of multiple personality disorder/dissociative identity disorder. One was the discontinuation in December 1997 of Dissociation: Progress in the Dissociative Disorders, the journal of The International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation. The society and its journal were perceived as uncritical sources of legitimacy for the extraordinary claims of the existence of intergenerational satanic cults responsible for a "hidden holocaust" of Satanic ritual abuse that was linked to the rise of MPD reports. In an effort to distance itself from the increasing skepticism regarding the clinical validity of MPD, the organization dropped "multiple personality" from its official name in 1993, and then in 1997 changed its name again to the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.

In 1994, the fourth edition of the DSM replaced the criteria again and changed the name of the condition from "multiple personality disorder" to the current "dissociative identity disorder" to emphasize the importance of changes to consciousness and identity rather than personality. The inclusion of interpersonality amnesia helped to distinguish DID from dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS), but the condition retains an inherent subjectivity due to difficulty in defining terms such as personality, identity, ego-state, and even amnesia. The ICD-10 classified DID as a "Dissociative [conversion] disorder" and used the name "multiple personality disorder" with the classification number of F44.81. In the ICD-11, the World Health Organization have classified DID under the name "dissociative identity disorder" (code 6B64), and most cases formerly diagnosed as DDNOS are classified as "partial dissociative identity disorder" (code 6B65).

21st century
A 2006 study compared scholarly research and publications on DID and dissociative amnesia to other mental health conditions, such as anorexia nervosa, alcohol use disorder, and schizophrenia from 1984 to 2003. The results were found to be unusually distributed, with a very low level of publications in the 1980s followed by a significant rise that peaked in the mid-1990s and subsequently rapidly declined in the decade following. Compared to 25 other diagnosis, the mid-1990s "bubble" of publications regarding DID was unique. In the opinion of the authors of the review, the publication results suggest a period of "fashion" that waned, and that the two diagnoses "[did] not command widespread scientific acceptance."

In popular culture
The public's long fascination with DID has led to a number of different books and films, with many representations described as increasing stigma by perpetuating the myth that people with mental illness are usually dangerous. Movies about DID have been also criticized for poor representation of both DID and its treatment, including "greatly overrepresenting" the role of hypnosis in therapy, showing a significantly smaller number of personalities than many people with DID have,  and misrepresenting people with DID as having theatrical and blatant switches between very conspicuous and different alters. Some movies are parodies and ridicule DID, for instance, Me, Myself & Irene, which also incorrectly states that DID is schizophrenia. In some stories, DID is used as a plot device, e.g. in Fight Club, and in whodunnit stories like Secret Window.

In the fifth part of the notorious Japanese manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Vento Aureo), the main antagonist is an individual with DID and is revealed to have two distinct personalities; one named Doppio which acts a regular civilian and secretely the consigliere of a mafia boss and its alter-ego Diavolo, which is the Boss himself.

United States of Tara was reported to be the first US television series with DID as its focus, and a professional commentary on each episode was published by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. More recently, the award winning Korean TV series Kill Me, Heal Me featured a wealthy young man with seven identities, one of whom falls in love with the beautiful psychiatry resident who tries to help him.

The A&E documentary Many Sides of Jane follows a young mom struggling to be a single mom with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Jane wants to bring awareness to the disorder.

A number of people with DID have publicly spoken about their experiences, including comedian and talk show host Roseanne Barr, who interviewed Truddi Chase, author of When Rabbit Howls; Chris Costner Sizemore, the subject of The Three Faces of Eve, Cameron West, author of First Person Plural: My life as a multiple, and NFL player Herschel Walker, author of Breaking Free: My life with dissociative identity disorder.

In The Three Faces of Eve (1957) hypnosis is used to identify a childhood trauma which then allows her to fuse from three identities into just one. However, Sizemore's own books I'm Eve and A Mind of My Own revealed that this did not last; she later attempted suicide, sought further treatment, and actually had twenty-two personalities rather than three. Sizemore re-entered therapy and by 1974 had achieved a lasting recovery. Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase portrays many of the 92 personalities Chase described in her book When Rabbit Howls, and is unusual in breaking away from the typical ending of integrating into one. Frankie & Alice (2010), starring Halle Berry was based on a real person with DID. In popular culture dissociative identity disorder is often confused with schizophrenia, and some movies advertised as representing dissociative identity disorder may be more representative of psychosis or schizophrenia, for example Psycho (1960).

In his book The C.I.A. Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists, psychiatrist Colin A. Ross states that based on documents obtained through freedom of information legislation, a psychiatrist linked to Project MKULTRA reported being able to deliberately induce dissociative identity disorder using a variety of aversive or abusive techniques, creating a Manchurian Candidate for military purposes.

In the USA Network television production Mr. Robot, the protagonist Elliot Alderson was created using anecdotal experiences of DID of the show's creator's friends. Sam Esmail said he consulted with a psychologist who "concretized" the character's mental health conditions, especially his plurality.

In M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable superhero film series (specifically, the films Split and Glass), Kevin Wendell Crumb is diagnosed with DID, and that some of the personalities have super-human powers. Experts and advocates say the films are a negative portrayal of DID and the films promote the stigmatization of the disorder.

The 1993 Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu featured its central character played by Shobana being affected with DID, mentioned as multiple personality disorder in the movie. Bollywood remake of Manichitrathazhu, Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) featured Vidya Balan as Avni, an individual diagnosed with DID who associated herself with Manjulika, a deceased dancer in a royal palace. Although the movie was criticised for being insensitive, it was also lauded for spreading awareness about DID and contributing towards removing stigma around mental health.

In 2005, Indian film director Shankar Shanmugam's Tamil film Anniyan has its plot centered on a disillusioned everyman whose frustration at what he sees as increasing social apathy and public negligence leads to a split personality that attempts to improve the system. Its central character Ambi, an idealistic, law-abiding lawyer who has DID and develops two other identities: a suave fashion model named Remo and a murderous vigilante named Anniyan.

In the 1997 Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy VII, the protagonist Cloud Strife is shown to have an identity disorder involving false memories as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sharon Packer has identified Cloud as having DID.

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, highlighting the general public's confusion between the two distinct and separate disorders.

DC Comics character Two-Face is depicted as having DID.

Legal issues
People with dissociative identity disorder may be involved in legal cases as a witness, defendant, or as the victim/injured party. Claims of DID have been used only rarely to argue criminal insanity in court. 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. Within legal circles, DID has been described as one of the most disputed psychiatric diagnoses and forensic assessments are needed. For defendants whose defense states they have a diagnosis of DID, courts must distinguish between those who genuinely have DID and those who are malingering to avoid responsibility. Expert witnesses are typically used to assess defendants in such cases, although some of the standard assessments like the MMPI-2 were not developed for people with a trauma history and the validity scales may incorrectly suggest malingering. The Multiscale Dissociation Inventory (Briere, 2002) is well suited to assessing malingering and dissociative disorders, unlike the self-report Dissociative Experiences Scale. In DID, evidence about the altered states of consciousness, actions of alter identities and episodes of amnesia may be excluded from a court if they are not considered relevant, although different countries and regions have different laws. A diagnosis of DID may be used to claim a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, but this very rarely succeeds, or of diminished capacity, which may reduce the length of a sentence. DID may also affect competency to stand trial. A not guilty by reason of insanity plea was first used successfully in an American court in 1978, in the State of Ohio v. Milligan case. However, a DID diagnosis is not automatically considered a justification for an insanity verdict, and since Milligan the few cases claiming insanity have largely been unsuccessful.

Bennett G. Braun was an American psychiatrist known for his promotion of the concept of multiple personality disorder (now called "dissociative identity disorder") and involvement in promoting the "Satanic Panic", a moral panic around a discredited conspiracy theory that led to thousands of people being wrongfully medically treated or investigated for nonexistent crimes.

Online subculture
A DID community exists on social media, including YouTube, Reddit, Discord, and TikTok. In those contexts, the experience of dissociative identities has been called multiplicity. High-profile members of this community have been criticized for faking their condition for views, or for portraying the disorder lightheartedly. 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 don't ... 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 don't need to be pathologized or treated." However, online communities for DID can be beneficial. Aubrey Bakker, a neuropsychologist, says, "Dissociative Identity Disorder can be extremely isolating... and [p]articipating in TikTok’s DID community can remedy some of that isolation."

Advocacy
Some advocates consider DID to be a form of neurodiversity, leading to advocacy in recognizing 'positive plurality' and the use of plural pronouns such as "we" and "our". Advocates also challenge the necessity of integration. Timothy Baynes argues that alters have full moral status, just as their host does. He states that as integration may entail the (involuntary) elimination of such an entity, forcing people to undergo it as a therapeutic treatment is "seriously immoral".

In 2011, author Lance Lippert wrote that most people with DID downplayed or minimized their symptoms rather than seeking fame, often due to shame or fear of the effects of stigma. Therapists may discourage people with DID from media work due to concerns that they may feel exploited or traumatized, for example as a result of demonstrating switching between personality states to entertain others.

A DID (or Dissociative Identities) Awareness Day takes place on March 5 annually, and a multicolored awareness ribbon is used, based on the idea of a "crazy quilt".

title: Dissociative identity disorder


text:
Talk:Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom

Refusal: Vanessa Redgrave
Accepted DBE in New Year Honours 2022, so update needed. I would do it myself but it needs a proper citation. Mdrb55 (talk) 11:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

"Irish government has no power" note
I've removed a very odd little note in the article about honours to Irish citizens. The constitution is very clear about this: "No title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government." Unless the editor was simply making a "the UK could ignore Irish law if it wanted to, we have nukes and such!" point (which isn't especially helpful to anyone), the claim as written was flat-out false. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 09:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (24 February 1743 – 19 June 1820 ) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.

Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768–1771), visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of president of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical garden. He is credited for bringing 30,000 plant specimens home with him; amongst them, he was the first European to document 1,400.

Banks advocated British settlement in New South Wales and the colonisation of Australia, as well as the establishment of Botany Bay as a place for the reception of convicts, and advised the British government on all Australian matters. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the genus named after him, Banksia, to the Western world. Around 80 species of plants bear his name. He was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti, which helped to establish the Royal Academy.

Early life

Banks was born in Argyll Street, Soho, London, the son of William Banks, a wealthy Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons, and his wife Sarah, daughter of William Bate. He was baptised at St James's Church, Piccadilly, on 20 February 1743, Old Style. He had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744.

Education
Banks was educated at Harrow School from the age of nine and then at Eton College from 1756; the boys with whom he attended the school included his future shipmate Constantine Phipps.

As a boy, Banks enjoyed exploring the Lincolnshire countryside and developed a keen interest in nature, history, and botany. When he was 17, he was inoculated with smallpox, but he became ill and did not return to school. In late 1760, he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he matriculated at Christ Church, where his studies were largely focussed on natural history rather than the classical curriculum. Determined to receive botanical instruction, he paid the Cambridge botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford in 1764.

Banks left Oxford for Chelsea in December 1763. He continued to attend the university until 1764, but left that year without taking a degree. His father had died in 1761, so when Banks reached the age of 21, he inherited the large estate of Revesby Abbey, in Lincolnshire, becoming the local squire and magistrate, and dividing his time between Lincolnshire and London. From his mother's house in Chelsea, he kept up his interest in science by attending the Chelsea Physic Garden of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and the British Museum, where he met the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. He began to make friends among the scientific men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus, whom he came to know through Solander. As Banks's influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands, hoping to indulge his own interest in botany. He became a Freemason sometime before 1769.

Newfoundland and Labrador
In 1766, Banks was elected to the Royal Society, and in the same year, at 23, he went with Phipps aboard the frigate HMS Niger (1759) to Newfoundland and Labrador with a view to studying their natural history. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and Labrador. Banks also documented 34 species of birds, including the great auk, which became extinct in 1844. On 7 May, he noted a large number of "penguins" swimming around the ship on the Grand Banks, and a specimen he collected in Chateau Bay, Labrador, was later identified as the great auk.

Endeavour voyage
Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the South Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour, 1768–1771. This was the first of James Cook's voyages of discovery in that region. Banks funded eight others to join him: the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, the Finnish naturalist Herman Spöring (who also served as Banks' personal secretary and as a draughtsman), artists Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, and four servants from his estate: James Roberts, Peter Briscoe, Thomas Richmond, and George Dorlton. In 1771, he was travelling with James Cook and docked in Simon's Town in what is now South Africa. There, he met the trader Christoffel Brand and a friendship started. He was the godfather of Brand's grandson Christoffel Brand.

The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, Bougainvillea (named after Cook's French counterpart, Louis Antoine de Bougainville), and to other parts of South America. The voyage then progressed to Tahiti (where the transit of Venus was observed, the overt purpose of the mission), then to New Zealand.

From there, it proceeded to the east coast of Australia, where Cook mapped the coastline and made landfall at Botany Bay. The ship then landed at Round Hill (23-25 May 1770), which is now known as Seventeen Seventy and at Endeavour River (near modern Cooktown) in Queensland, where they spent almost seven weeks ashore while the ship was repaired after becoming holed on the Great Barrier Reef. While they were in Australia, Banks, Daniel Solander, and Finnish botanist Dr Herman Spöring Jr. made the first major collection of Australian flora, describing many species new to science. Almost 800 specimens were illustrated by the artist Sydney Parkinson and appear in Banks' Florilegium, finally published in 35 volumes between 1980 and 1990. Notable also was that during the period when the Endeavour was being repaired, Banks observed a kangaroo, first recorded as "kanguru" on 12 July 1770 in an entry in his diary.

Return home and voyage to Iceland
Banks arrived back in England on 12 July 1771 and immediately became famous. He intended to go with Cook on his second voyage, which began on 13 May 1772, but difficulties arose about Banks' scientific requirements on board Cook's new ship, HMS Resolution. The Admiralty regarded Banks' demands as unacceptable and without prior warning, withdrew his permission to sail. Banks immediately arranged an alternative expedition, and in July 1772, Daniel Solander and he visited the Isle of Wight, the Hebrides, Iceland, and the Orkney Islands, aboard Sir Lawrence. In Iceland, they ascended Mt. Hekla and visited the Great Geyser, and were the first scientific visitors to Staffa in the Inner Hebrides. They returned to London in November, with many botanical specimens, via Edinburgh, where Banks and Solander were interviewed by James Boswell. In 1773, he toured south Wales in the company of artist Paul Sandby. When he settled in London, he began work on his Florilegium. He kept in touch with most of the scientists of his time, was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1773, and added a fresh interest when he was elected to the Dilettante Society in 1774. He was afterwards secretary of this society from 1778 to 1797. On 30 November 1778, he was elected president of the Royal Society, a position he was to hold with great distinction for over 41 years.

In March 1779, Banks married Dorothea Hugessen, daughter of W. W. Hugessen, and settled in a large house at 32 Soho Square. It continued to be his London residence for the remainder of his life. There, he welcomed the scientists, students, and authors of his period, and many distinguished foreign visitors. His sister Sarah Sophia Banks lived in the house with Banks and his wife. He had as librarian and curator of his collections Solander, Jonas Carlsson Dryander, and Robert Brown in succession.

Also in 1779, Banks took a lease on an estate called Spring Grove, the former residence of Elisha Biscoe (1705–1776), which he eventually bought outright from Biscoe's son, also Elisha, in 1808. The picture shows the house in 1815. Its 34 acres ran along the northern side of the London Road, Isleworth, and contained a natural spring, which was an important attraction to him. Banks spent much time and effort on this secondary home. He steadily created a renowned botanical masterpiece on the estate, achieved primarily with many of the great variety of foreign plants he had collected on his extensive travels around the world, particularly to Australia and the South Seas. The surrounding district became known as Spring Grove.

The house was substantially extended and rebuilt by later owners and is now part of West Thames College.

Banks was made a baronet in 1781, three years after being elected president of the Royal Society. During much of this time, he was an informal adviser to King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a position that was formalised in 1797. Banks dispatched explorers and botanists to many parts of the world, and through these efforts, Kew Gardens became arguably the pre-eminent botanical gardens in the world, with many species being introduced to Europe through them and through Chelsea Physic Garden and their head gardener John Fairbairn. He directly fostered several famous voyages, including that of George Vancouver to the northeastern Pacific (Pacific Northwest), and William Bligh's voyages (one entailing the infamous mutiny on the Bounty) to transplant breadfruit from the South Pacific to the Caribbean islands. Banks was also a major financial supporter of William Smith in his decade-long efforts to create a geological map of England, the first geological map of an entire country. He also chose Allan Cunningham for voyages to Brazil and the north and northwest coasts of Australia to collect specimens.

Colonisation of New South Wales
Banks's own time in Australia, however, led to his interest in the British colonisation of that continent. He was to be the greatest proponent of settlement in New South Wales. A genus of the Proteaceae was named in his honour as Banksia. In 1779, Banks, giving evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, had stated that in his opinion the place most eligible for the reception of convicts "was Botany Bay, on the coast of New Holland", on the general grounds that, "it was not to be doubted that a Tract of Land such as New Holland, which was larger than the whole of Europe, would furnish Matter of advantageous Return".

Although Banks remained uninvolved in these colonies in a hands on manner, he was, nonetheless, the general adviser to the government on all Australian matters for twenty years. He arranged that a large number of useful trees and plants should be sent out in the supply ship HMS Guardian (1784), which was unfortunately wrecked, as well as other ships; many of these were supplied by Hugh Ronalds from his nursery in Brentford. Every vessel that came from New South Wales brought to Banks plants or animals or geological and other specimens and, on at least one occasion, human remains. Governor Philip Gidley King sent Banks the severed head of an Aboriginal man named Pemulwuy that Banks had seemingly listed as among his "desiderata."

He was continually called on for help in developing the agriculture and trade of the colony, and his influence was used in connection with the sending out of early free settlers, one of whom, a young gardener George Suttor, later wrote a memoir of Banks. The three earliest governors of the colony, Arthur Phillip, John Hunter, and Philip Gidley King, were in continual correspondence with him. Banks produced a significant body of papers, including one of the earliest Aboriginal Australian words lists compiled by a European. Bligh was also appointed governor of New South Wales on Banks's recommendation. Banks followed the explorations of Matthew Flinders, George Bass, and Lieutenant James Grant, and among his paid helpers were George Caley, Robert Brown, and Allan Cunningham.

However, Banks backed William Bligh to be installed as the new governor of New South Wales and to crack down on the New South Wales Corps (or Rum Corps), which made a fortune on the trading of rum. This brought him in direct confrontation with post-Rum Rebellion de facto leaders such as John Macarthur and George Johnston. This backing led to the Rum Rebellion in Sydney, whereby the governor was overthrown by the two men. This became an embarrassment for Sir Joseph Banks, also, because years earlier, he campaigned that John Macarthur not be granted 10,000 acres of land near Sydney in the cow pastures, which was later granted by Lord Camden. The next governor, Lachlan Macquarie, was asked to arrest Macarthur and Johnston, only to realise that they had left Sydney for London to defend themselves. He was humiliated that Macarthur and Johnston were acquitted from all charges in London and both later returned to Sydney.

Later life

Banks met the young Alexander von Humboldt in 1790, when Banks was already the president of the Royal Society. Before Humboldt and his scientific travel companion and collaborator Aimé Bonpland left for what became a five-year journal of exploration and discovery, Humboldt requested a British passport for Bonpland, should the two encounter British warships. On their travels, Humboldt arranged for specimens be sent to Banks, should they be seized by the British. Banks and Humboldt remained in touch until Banks's death, aiding Humboldt by mobilising his wide network of scientific contacts to forward information to the great German scientist. Both men believed in the internationalism of science.

Banks was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1787 and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788. Among other activities, Banks found time to serve as a trustee of the British Museum for 42 years. He was high sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1794.

He worked with Sir George Staunton in producing the official account of the British mission to the Chinese Imperial court. This diplomatic and trade mission was headed by George, Earl Macartney. Although the Macartney Embassy returned to London without obtaining any concession from China, the mission could have been termed a success because it brought back detailed observations. This multivolume work was taken chiefly from the papers of Lord Macartney and from the papers of Sir Erasmus Gower, who was commander of the expedition. Banks was responsible for selecting and arranging engraving of the illustrations in this official record.

Banks was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Bath (KB) on 1 July 1795, which became Knight Grand Cross (GCB) when the order was restructured in 1815.

Banks was a large landowner and activist encloser, drainer and ‘improver’ in Fens at Revesby.

Banks's health began to fail early in the 19th century and he suffered from gout every winter. After 1805, he practically lost the use of his legs and had to be wheeled to his meetings in a chair, but his mind remained as vigorous as ever. He had been a member of the Society of Antiquaries nearly all his life, and he developed an interest in archaeology in his later years. In 1807, William Kerr named the Lady Banks climbing rose after Banks's wife. Banks was made an honorary founding member of the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh in 1808. In 1809, he became associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. In 1809, his friend Alexander Henry dedicated his travel book to him. In May 1820, he forwarded his resignation as president of the Royal Society, but withdrew it at the request of the council. In 1819, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, on his First Russian Antarctic Expedition, briefly stopped in England and met Joseph Banks. Banks had sailed with James Cook 50 years earlier and supplied the Russians with books and charts for their expedition. He died on 19 June 1820 in Spring Grove House, Isleworth, London, and was buried at St Leonard's Church, Heston. Lady Banks survived him, but they had no children.

Legacy

Banks was a major supporter of the internationalist nature of science, being actively involved both in keeping open the lines of communication with continental scientists during the Napoleonic Wars, and in introducing the British people to the wonders of the wider world. He was honoured with many place names in the South Pacific: Banks Peninsula on the South Island, New Zealand; the Banks Islands in modern-day Vanuatu; the Banks Strait between Tasmania and the Furneaux Islands; Banks Island in the Northwest Territories, Canada; and the Sir Joseph Banks Group in South Australia.

The Canberra suburb of Banks, the electoral Division of Banks, and the Sydney suburbs of Bankstown, Banksia, and Banksmeadow are all named after him, as is the northern headland of Botany Bay, Cape Banks. A number of schools and colleges are also named after him, including the Sir Joseph Banks High School in the Sydney suburb of Revesby, and the Joseph Banks Secondary College opened in Perth, Western Australia in 2015.

An image of Banks was featured on the paper $5 Australian banknote from its introduction in 1967 before it was replaced by the later polymer currency.

In 1986, Banks was honoured by his portrait being depicted on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post.

In Lincoln, England, the Sir Joseph Banks Conservatory was constructed in 1989 at The Lawn, Lincoln; its tropical hot house had numerous plants related to Banks's voyages, with samples from across the world, including Australia. The conservatory was moved to Woodside Wildlife Park in 2016 and has been named 'Endeavour'. A plaque was installed in Lincoln Cathedral in his honour. In Boston, Lincolnshire, Banks was recorder for the town. His portrait, painted in 1814 by Thomas Phillips, was commissioned by the Corporation of Boston, as a tribute to one whose 'judicious and active exertions improved and enriched this borough and neighbourhood'. It cost them 100 guineas. The portrait is now hanging in the Council Chamber of the Guildhall Museum.

The Sir Joseph Banks Centre is located in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, housed in a Grade II listed building, which was recently restored by the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire to celebrate Banks' life. Horncastle is located a few miles from Banks' Revesby estate and the naturalist was the town's lord of the manor. The centre is located on Bridge Street. It boasts research facilities, historic links to Australia, and a garden in which rare plants can be viewed and purchased.

At the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show, an exhibition garden celebrated the historic link between Banks and the botanical discoveries of flora and fauna on his journey through South America, Tahiti, New Zealand, and eventually Australia on Captain Cook's ship Endeavour. The competition garden was the entry of Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens with an Australian theme. It was based on the metaphorical journey of water through the continent, related to the award-winning Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne. The design won a gold medal.

In 1911, London County Council marked Banks' house at 32 Soho Square with a blue plaque. This was replaced in 1938 with a rectangular stone plaque commemorating Banks and botanists David Don and Robert Brown and meetings of the Linnean Society.

Banks appears in the historical novel Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. He appears briefly as a contact with British naval intelligence in the historical novel Post Captain, from the Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. He is also featured in Elizabeth Gilbert's 2013 best-selling novel, The Signature of All Things, and is a major character in Martin Davies' 2005 novel The Conjuror's Bird.

Banks's life and influence were explored in a documentary five-part television series The Lost World of Joseph Banks in 2016.

Banks' account of the Endeavour's approach to Botany Bay might have been the basis for the invisible ships myth.

Dispersal of Banks papers
Following Banks's death in 1820 a "treasure-trove of letters and papers" was passed to Sir Edward Knatchbull, his wife's nephew. In 1828 the latter passed bound volumes of foreign correspondence to the British Library but retained the rest of the papers in the expectation that an official biography would be written. After the death of Knatchbull and his wife, the letters and papers were passed on to their son Edward Knatchbull Hugesson, 1st Baron Brabourne, who offered to sell them to the British Museum. However, in 1884 it declined to purchase them. Following that "notorious" decision the Agent General of New South Wales, Sir Saul Samuel, issued instructions for the purchase of a large portion of the papers, which now form part of the State Library of New South Wales's Brabourne Collection. The "large quantities of papers" which remained were then auctioned off at Sotheby's in London in March and April 1886. One of the successful bidders was E. A. Petherick. Many of those are now in the Petherick Collection at the National Library of Australia. During the twentieth century the National Library continued to purchase Banks's letters and papers when they came on the market.

Online archive
In his Endeavour journal, Banks recorded 30 years of his life. Letters, invoices, maps, regalia, and watercolour drawings have now been digitised on the State Library of NSW website. This rich research and educational tool provides access to 8800 high-quality digital images.

Primary resources

 * Sutro Library, a branch of the California State Library. Sir Joseph Banks Collection, 1770-1812.
 * State Library of New South Wales. Papers of Sir Joseph Banks and The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771
 * National Library of Australia (NLA). Papers of Sir Joseph Banks
 * Royal Geographical Society of South Australia Journal of a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador commencing 7 April and ending 17 November 1766
 * Notebooks containing vocabularies of Tahitian languages and observations collected by Banks are held by SOAS Special Collections. Digitised items from the collection are available to view online here.

Secondary resources

 * Cameron, H. C. (1952) Sir Joseph Banks, K.B., P.R.S.; the Autocrat of the Philosophers, Batchworth Press.
 * Carter, H. B. (1964) His Majesty's Spanish Flock: Sir Joseph Banks and the Merinos of George III of England [sic], University of Sydney.
 * Carter, Harold Burnell (1988) Sir Joseph Banks, 1743–1820 London: British Museum of Natural History ISBN 0-565-00993-1;
 * Dawson, W. R. (ed) (1958) The Banks Letters, University of London.
 * Durt, Tania (2007) "Joseph Banks", pp. 173–181 in The Great Naturalists, edited by Robert Huxley. London: Thames & Hudson with the Natural History Museum.
 * Duyker, Edward (1998) Nature's Argonaut: Daniel Solander 1733-1782: Naturalist and Voyager with Cook and Banks. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84753-6
 * Marshall, John Braybrooke. "Daniel Carl Solander, Friend, Librarian and Assistant to Sir Joseph Banks." Archives of Natural History 11.3 (1984): 451–456.
 * Duyker, Edward & Tingbrand, Per (ed. & trans) (1995) Daniel Solander: Collected Correspondence 1753–1782, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, pp. 466, ISBN 0-522-84636-X Scandinavian University Press, Oslo, 1995, pp. 466, ISBN 82-00-22454-6
 * Fara, Patricia (2004) Sex, Botany & Empire: The Story Of Carl Linnaeus And Joseph Banks. New York: Columbia University Press ISBN 0-231-13426-6
 * Gascoigne, John (1994) Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and Polite Culture Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-54211-1
 * Gascoigne, John (1998) Science in the Service of Empire: Joseph Banks, The British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-55069-6
 * , Volume I, Volume II-III
 * Kryza, Frank T. (207) The Race to Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold. New York: HarperCollins ISBN 0-06-056065-7
 * Lysaght, A. M. (1971). Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766; his diary, manuscripts, and collections. Faber and Faber, London. ISBN 0-571-09351-5;
 * Mackaness, G. (1936) Sir Joseph Banks. His Relations with Australia, University of Sydney
 * Maiden, J. H. (1909) Sir Joseph Banks: The “Father of Australia”. Kegan Paul.
 * O'Brian, Patrick 1993 Joseph Banks: A Life. London: David R. Godine, 1993. ISBN 0-87923-930-1, reprinted by University of Chicago Press, 1997 ISBN 0-226-61628-2
 * ——— 1987 Sir Joseph Banks London: Harvill Press. ISBN 0-00-272340-9
 * Smith, Edward (1911) Life of Sir Joseph Banks: With Some Notices of his Friends and Contemporaries. John Lane.
 * ——— 1987 Sir Joseph Banks London: Harvill Press. ISBN 0-00-272340-9
 * Smith, Edward (1911) Life of Sir Joseph Banks: With Some Notices of his Friends and Contemporaries. John Lane.

Select unpublished monographs

 * Duncan, A. (1821) A Short Account of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, University of Edinburgh.
 * Gilbert, L. (1962) Botanical Investigation of Eastern Seaboard Australia, 1788–1810, B.A. thesis, University of New England, Australia.

Fiction
Novels based on a mix of historical fact and conjecture about Banks' early life include:

 * Davies, Martin (2005) The Conjurer's Bird New York: Shaye Areheart/Random House. ISBN 1-4000-9733-9

title: Joseph Banks