C. G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections: A psychiatrist who had multiple personality and who built a psychological theory partially based on it.

Carl Gustave Jung (1875 -1961) is of interest here for three reasons:

First, Jungian therapists have a tradition of treating creative artists.

Second, Jung described himself as having a normal version of multiple personality, and some of his psychological theory is based on his own psychology.

Third, I like to give examples of successful people, and not just novelists, who have had multiple personality.

In his autobiography, Jung explicitly describes himself as having more than one personality since childhood:

“Then, to my intense confusion, it occurred to me that I was actually two different persons. One of them was the schoolboy who could not grasp algebra and was far from sure of himself, the other was important, a high authority, a man not to be trifled with…This ‘other’ was an old man who lived in the eighteenth century…I began pondering these isolated impressions, and they coalesced into a coherent picture: of myself living in two ages simultaneously, and being two different persons” (1, pp. 33-35).

Since he continues to function well, he infers that he does not have a medical illness, multiple personality disorder, but rather a normal psychological phenomenon. He is right, except when he assumes that everyone has normal multiple personality (most people don’t):

“The play and counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole life, has nothing to do with a ‘split’ or dissociation in the ordinary medical sense. On the contrary, it is played out in every individual. In my life No. 2 has been of prime importance, and I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come from within. He is a typical figure, but he is perceived only by the very few” (1, p. 45).

It is true that many people with multiple personality don’t realize it, but it is going too far to say that everyone has it (most people don’t).

“…I once asked myself, ‘What am I really doing? Certainly this has nothing to do with science. But then what is it?’ Whereupon a voice within me said, ‘It is art.’ I was astonished. It had never entered my head that what I was writing has any connection with art. Then I thought, ‘Perhaps my unconscious is forming a personality that is not me, but which is insisting on coming through to expression…I said very emphatically to this voice that my fantasies had nothing to do with art, and I felt a great inner resistance…Then came the…same assertion: 'That is art.’ This time I caught her and said, ‘No, it is not art!'…and prepared myself for an argument…She came through with a long statement…Later…I called her the ‘anima’…I felt a little awed by her. It was like the feeling of an invisible presence in the room…” (1, pp. 185-186).

1. C. G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffé. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Revised Edition. New York, Vintage Books/Random House, 1961/1973.