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.

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Friday, May 6, 2016

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: Their use of pseudonyms means they might have multiple personality, which could be advantageous, but puzzling.

In yesterday’s post, I cited two news stories, which reported that Trump and Clinton had used pseudonyms. And in this blog, I have discussed examples of the use of pseudonyms as a manifestation of multiple personality. Of course, the use of pseudonyms, in and of itself, does not prove that a person has multiple personality, and it certainly does not prove that either Trump or Clinton has multiple personality.

But what if they did have multiple personality? Well, you have to distinguish, as this blog does, between normal multiple personality and multiple personality disorder (also known as dissociative identity disorder). Most people have never heard of normal multiple personality. It is not in the psychiatric diagnostic manual, DSM-5, except by implication.

The DSM-5 criteria for diagnosing multiple personality disorder requires not only, A. more than one personality, and B. memory gaps, but also C. that “The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.” The inclusion of criterion C implies that there are people who have the basic symptoms of multiple personality, but do not have significant distress or dysfunction from it, and so are not mentally ill.

This blog takes that a step further. Not only may a person have multiple personality and not be mentally ill, but, sometimes, the multiple personality may be an advantage. My prime example is novelists, who do have multiple personality, who use it in their creative process, and who do lead very successful lives (without any public recognition of their multiple personality, because, as I explain in this blog, the condition is usually camouflaged, and may not be recognized even by the persons, themselves).

In short, I don’t know if either Trump or Clinton has multiple personality. But since they are both very high-functioning people, if they did have multiple personality, they would not be mentally ill: it would be the normal version, which might give them an advantage, but also make them puzzling.
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