Doris Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen”: In Multiple Personality, “Persecutor Personalities” are Well-Known to Commit “Internal Homicides” in Apparent Suicides

Especially in view of the surprising popularity of my past post on this short story, I should elaborate on my interpretation: that what seems like a suicide may have been a “homicide” committed by an alternate personality against the host personality.

My interpretation is not a fanciful idea that I just made up for “To Room Nineteen.” I have worked with persecutor personalities in my treatment of patients with multiple personality, and they are common knowledge in the multiple personality literature:

“At least half or more of MPD [multiple personality disorder] patients have alter personalities who see themselves in diametric conflict with the host personality. This group of alter personalities, sometimes referred to as ‘internal persecutors,’ will sabotage the patient’s life and may inflict serious injury upon the body in attempts to harm or kill the host or other personalities. They may be responsible for episodes of self-mutilation or for ‘suicide’ attempts, which are actually ‘internal homicides’ as persecutor personalities attempt to maim or kill the host. The perceived degree of separateness that allows one personality to believe that it can kill another personality without endangering itself has been labeled a ‘pseudodelusion’ by Kluft and a form of ‘trance logic’ by Spiegel.

“Some persecutor personalities can be recognized as ‘introjects’ of the original abuser(s); others have evolved from original helper personalities into current persecutors. Typically, they strike a contemptuous or condescending attitude toward the therapist and often actively seek to undermine treatment. In spite of their history of hostile behavior toward the patient as a whole and their negative reactions toward the therapy, they can be won over and enlisted in the patient’s struggle to improve the quality of his or her life. In their anger, they contain much of the energy and strength that an MPD patient needs to survive and improve” (1, pp. 108-109).

1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.