Janice Donovan Diagnosis

In the episode of Law and Order: Special Victim Unit season nine episode one, there was a case which a woman had multiple personality disorder. But what you do not know from first watching the show until the end, is that she was faking it the entire time. The police’s psychotherapist say that is very hard to properly diagnose this disorder. The events that lead to Janice Donovan “diagnosis” of multiple personality disorder was years of childhood sexual abuse by their father as well as witnessing it happen to her sister as well. This episode was a bit confusing because of the simple fact that she was lying and there were so many added elements into the storyline. The episode starts off with her, Janice, coming into the police station to report a possible child abuse case. She told detective Benson that she was a therapist, named Dr. Anna Young, and wanted to report one of her patients. Coincidently, the patients name was Janice. The patient

It was the parents of Janice. Then Stabler gets a call that Janice is at his house with a knife and his pregnant wife was there in the house. Once Stabler gets in the house Dori was talking to Stabler’s wife, telling her that Stabler and she were going to be together. Luckily before any harm was done, Benson and Stabler were able to restrain her safely and they took her back to the station. Janice was put into a mental institute.

But Stabler and Benson was not done. They went to the jail where Janice’s sister was located and talked to her cellmate. Come to find out, she was reading a book about multiple personality disorder and was telling Janice how to fool people. Both Janice and her sister was arrested for killing their parents.

Multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder can be found on page 176. It is described as two or more separate identities that may not always be aware of each other’s thoughts, feelings, and