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.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Allen Frances, M.D.: His recent book calls multiple personality a hoax, but his previous book vouches for the validity of three cases. Why?

Since this blog has criticized the lack of relevant credentials of authors of two books skeptical of multiple personality, I want to emphasize that the real issue for credibility is not credentials, but relevant expertise.

Dr. Frances certainly has excellent credentials. Indeed, he was eminent enough in psychiatry to be made Chair of the task force that wrote the 4th edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual, DSM-IV (1994). However, as I have explained in past posts—such as the one on the mental status examination—most psychiatrists have never learned how to make this diagnosis if there is a typical presentation, and will make it only if there is a “classic” presentation, which is atypical and happens rarely.

Be that as it may, what can explain the contradiction between Dr. Frances’s two books?

Recent Book
“MPD [multiple personality disorder] is probably no more than a metaphor…MPD presented a dilemma for me in my work as chair of…DSM-IV…I felt it was a hoax…and certainly not a legitimate mental disorder. For better and worse, I chose not to impose my view…even though I believed [multiple personality] was complete bunk (1, pp. 131-132).

Previous Book
“We do not deny altogether the existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder [Multiple Personality Disorder] and together have seen what we believe to be three genuine cases…” (2, p. 287).

1. Allen Frances, M.D. Saving Normal. New York, William Morrow, 2013.
2. Allen Frances, M.D., Michael B. First, M.D. Am I Okay? New York, Touchstone, 1998/2000. 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)