Editing Dissociative identity disorder (section)

===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.<ref name = APA2008/><ref name = Hersen2012/> 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.<ref name =Kihlstrom/> In the late 1970s and '80s, the number of diagnoses rose sharply.<ref name =Kihlstrom/> An estimate from the 1980s placed the incidence at 0.01%.<ref name = APA2008/> 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).<ref name = Kihlstrom/> Others explain the increase as being due to the use of inappropriate therapeutic techniques in highly suggestible individuals, though this is itself controversial<ref name = Blackwell/><ref name = Weiten/> while proponents of DID claim the increase in incidence is due to increased recognition of and ability to recognize the disorder.<ref name = Hersen2012/>

A 1996 essay suggested three possible causes for the sudden increase of DID diagnoses, among which the author suspects the first being most likely:<ref name="Paris J 1996">{{cite journal |author=Paris J |year=1996 |title=Review-Essay: Dissociative Symptoms, Dissociative Disorders, and Cultural Psychiatry |journal=Transcult Psychiatry |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=55–68 |doi=10.1177/136346159603300104 |s2cid=145705618}}</ref>

# The result of therapist suggestions to suggestible people, much as [[Jean-Martin Charcot|Charcot]]'s hysterics acted in accordance with his expectations.
# Psychiatrists' past failure to recognize dissociation being redressed by new training and knowledge.
# Dissociative phenomena are actually increasing, but this increase only represents a new form of an old and protean entity: "hysteria".
Dissociative disorders were excluded from the [[Psychiatric epidemiology#Example: The Epidemiological Catchment Area Project|Epidemiological Catchment Area Project]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=A |first=Eaton, W W Regier, D A Locke, B Z Taube, C |title=The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program of the National Institute of Mental Health. |oclc=679135747}}</ref>