Is Multiple Personality a fad and a debatable interpretation, or has it been documented for over 400 years, and is it clearly observable?

Cases of the clinical disorder, multiple personality disorder, have been documented for over 400 years (see post earlier today).

And that is just the clinical disorder. One would expect the normal version of multiple personality—the subject of this blog— to be much more common than the clinical disorder (just as one would expect more people to have normal anxiety than to have an anxiety disorder).

And since imaginary companions are known to be relatively common in childhood, it is reasonable to expect that something so similar, multiple personality, would be just as natural to human psychology, and also relatively common.

But isn’t that kind of thing just for children, in childhood? Don’t adults outgrow that? Many don’t. It is just that they are more discreet about mentioning it, and may think about it in other terms. Who would be so indiscreet as to say so? Novelist Stephen King, for one. I have quoted Stephen King in this blog as saying that novelists don’t outgrow it.

But the main point I would emphasize is that the diagnosis of multiple personality involves the observation of certain unmistakable behavior (the diagnostic criteria in the diagnostic manual). That is why the vociferous critics of multiple personality have not been able to get it kicked out of the diagnostic manual. Too many people have seen it.

Multiple personality is neither a fad nor an interpretation. Just the opposite. It has been documented for over 400 years and it is observable.