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Comment by azrazalea | Hacker News Reader

How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong.

I know multiple "collectives", as I've heard them called, on some online chatrooms. They seem perfectly functional and logically consistent.

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I think parent comment was referring to "Sybil" or something similar (it isn't the only story about DID like this), which was based on a real person, except there's indication her psychiatrist was tricking her into thinking she had multiple personalities and then helping resolve those personalities in order to make money off the story. Pretty much everything about the case is unclear at this point, other than that shady biz was going on everywhere once people realized there was big money to be made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(Schreiber_book)

By "debunked", the parent meant, "there is little clinical evidence for existence."

The burden of proof for the diagnosis is on the assertion; people can act as though they have multiple personalities, and that's why there is controversy on the disease itself.

I mean, at least in a social (not clinical) setting, i'd say the burden of proof is on society to prove that it doesn't exist.

I understand not wanting to clinically treat it if there isn't much evidence.

Not really. You don't prove non-existence -- you prove existence.

Else we'd also have some burden to prove that fairies don't exist.

>How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong.

Yes, but there's this thing called science, that doesn't care about hurting feelings...

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