BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Monday, June 16, 2014

Mirror Image or Literary Doubles: Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Multiple Personality’s Switching

When I see a title like The Metamorphosis (aka The Transformation), I think of the discussion of metamorphosis and transformation in textbooks of multiple personality. Only there it is called “switching,” meaning the metamorphosis or transformation of one personality to another.

“Switching is the process of changing from one alter personality to another and is a core behavioral phenomenon in MPD [multiple personality disorder]…Many therapists report that initially they were only vaguely aware that a patient was changing in some fashion…Eventually, many therapists report that they can tell which personality is ‘out’ from 50 paces…

“In many cases, the patient has learned to disguise or cover up switching behavior. Women will frequently turn their faces away, momentarily shield their faces with their hands, or let their hair fall over their faces during the moment of switching. An alternate personality may time its emergence so that the therapist is looking away or is otherwise distracted…

“In general, the alter personality present before the switch is replaced by another personality. In some cases, however, both personalities will be present simultaneously…The actual moment of switching can last from fractions of a second to several minutes or even longer in a few cases” (1).

The textbook discusses how the therapist must learn to note changes in facial expression, posture and body language, voice and speech, dress and grooming, emotion, thought processes, psychophysiological sensitivities to medications or alcohol, etc.

Would novelists who have normal multiple personality, and who experience switching, find Kafka threatening or inspirational?

Frank W. Putnam. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989, pp. 117-123.
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