Norman Bates

Norman Bates

The movie Psycho has to be the classic scary movie film. That "eek eek eek eek" sound during the shower scene is one of the most recognized sounds across the world. But what makes that movie extraordinary is the twist, freak ending. The strange, shy son who owns the local motel turns out to be a murdering psychopath who had the personality disorder of Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is a twist because for the whole movie the audience is led to believe his mother is still alive and is just too sick to be seen. Little do we know (an even to Norman himself), Norman has been wearing his mothers clothes and wigs and taking over her personality completely.

Dissociative Identity Disorder, formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is when the presence of two or more personalities are present in a person that recurrently take over control of the persons behavior while the subject has no recollection of anything ever happening. This isn't because of abuse of a substance like alcohol blackouts or general medical condition like seizures but because of an imbalance in the brain. Each personality usually has its own name, identity, personal history and self image. There is always the primary personality, the individual's actual name and self. The primary personality tends to be shy and passive as with Norman, while the other personality tends to be strong and outgoing and aggressive as with his mother. During these times of change the person cannot remember the actions of the "other person". And in Norman's case still actually believed his mother was alive and cleaned up after "her" killings. The separate personalities may come out during certain times as well. So if the subject was beginning to feel threatened or frightened it might switch to its more aggressive stronger half without realizing they have done so. The switch from one personality to another usually is only a matter of seconds, but can also be done with back and forth repetition. Such as voice commands from one personality to the other. This is displayed in Norman's case because his "mother" will talk to him and he will switch back to himself and talk back. Although Norman only displayed two personalities, there has been a wide range of recorded amounts of personalities ranging from 2 to 100.

A person diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder usually display signs of depression and have severe mood swings. They tend to have extreme behavior for each personality such as: a polite, innocent personality, an aggressive, reckless personality, and even a seductive, sexual personality. People who come from a family where this disorder has occurred before are more likely to be diagnosed with DID.

In the movie the disorder really isn't portrayed until the very end when the audience is able to figure it all out. Hollywood definitely put the crazy