Why the controversy?

Q: Why is there so much controversy over this diagnosis? - Anon

A: I think people get confused and disbelieving about Dissociative Identity Disorder because they only see the extreme cases or Hollywood versions of the disorder. I believe there are three types of people with DID:
1. Those who aren't yet aware they have it. They may be in denial, or may be chasing symptoms (such as depression, anxiety, mood swings, substance abuse, etc.) and not realizing it's root cause.
2. Those who know they have it and function very well, so they "pass as normal." They may have periods of time when they need counseling or medication to help deal with stress and symptoms (such as depression, or when dealing with major life stressors such as the death of a significant other, marriage issues), but have probably never been hospitalized. The main alters or hosts who run the body/life may not have much, if any, awareness of what is going on in the rest of their internal world so they erroneously believe they are Singletons.
3. Those who have spent years being misdiagnosed, mismanaged with medication, or have not had access to appropriate therapy. They do not function well most of the time and have frequent hospitalizations. They may be disabled by their condition, or by their lack of appropriate treatment.

I think most people fall into the second category. This is what makes tracking the diagnosis prevalence difficult. Many studies only use hospitalized patients, but if many or even most of the people with the disorder are never entering the hospital then we can not accurately determine how many people have the disorder. The other commonly used method is looking at how therapists bill services and what diagnostic code they utilize. Many therapists will use the code that is related to the chief complaint (such as depression, PTSD, eating disorder, etc.) rather than all the possible codes that fit a client (such as DID, Axis II codes for personality disorder, and other diagnostic codes that may seem overly stigmatizing or difficult to be approved for treatment). This doesn't even begin to measure the number of clinicians who could miss the diagnosis due to lack of training/experience, or due to lack of belief in the Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis.