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.

— Share site with friends.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Pathognomonic Symptoms: Why Multiple Personality is a More Definite Condition than Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder

In my December 8, 2014 post, I pointed out that of three psychiatric diagnoses—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and multiple personality—multiple personality is the most definite and specific condition, and is, in that regard, the least controversial.

There is no symptom of schizophrenia that is found only in schizophrenia. There is no symptom of bipolar disorder that is found only in bipolar disorder. But there are symptoms of multiple personality that are found only in multiple personality.

In other words, of the three conditions, multiple personality is the only one with any symptoms that are “pathognomonic,” defined as follows:

“Pathognomonic (often misspelled as pathognomic and sometimes as pathomnemonic) is a term, often used in medicine, that means characteristic for a particular disease. A pathognomonic sign is a particular sign whose presence means that a particular disease is present beyond any doubt. Labelling a sign or symptom "pathognomonic" represents a marked intensification of a "diagnostic" sign or symptom.

“While some findings may be classic, typical or highly suggestive in a certain condition, they may not occur uniquely in this condition and therefore may not directly imply a specific diagnosis. A pathognomonic sign or symptom has very high specificity but does not need to have high sensitivity: for example it can sometimes be absent in a certain disease, since the term only implies that, when it is present, the doctor instantly knows the patient's illness. The presence of a pathognomonic finding allows immediate diagnosis, since there are no other conditions in the differential diagnosis.” —Wikipedia

So if someone says that multiple personality is the most controversial psychiatric diagnosis, ask them, “Compared to what?” And if they say schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or most other psychiatric diagnoses, ask them, “Does it have any symptoms that are pathognomonic?" Multiple personality does.
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