“The Story of Ruth” by Morton Schatzman, M.D.: Case history of woman referred to psychiatrist, because she had disturbing visual hallucinations of her father.

“Ruth” (a pseudonym) is a twenty-five-year-old married mother who is referred to a psychiatrist by her physician, because she has frightening visual hallucinations of her father, who, she has always remembered, had sexually assaulted her when she was ten.

As Dr. Schatzman, the psychiatrist, says in his introduction, “This is a true story. Some of the incidents are extraordinary, but they actually happened. Whenever I was with Ruth, I carried a pen and paper or an audiotape machine to record what occurred. All the conversations that appear here are reported verbatim or nearly so.”

He calls her life-like visual hallucinations “apparitions,” and it turns out that Ruth has had the ability to make apparitions of people she knows “all my life” (1, p. 99). She can voluntarily see life-like apparitions of her friend Becky, and of Dr. Schatzman, too.

Ruth notices that “I sometimes forget my experiences of an apparition unless I make a particular effort to remember it.” And “they’ve got personalities,” Ruth commented. “I can’t make them do what they don’t want to do, or keep them from doing what they want to do. They’re like real people” (1, p. 122).

Ruth finds that she can see her father’s face when she looks in the mirror (1, p. 137). (Search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog to see past posts on persons with multiple personality, who may see alternate personalities when they look in the mirror.) And Ruth is soon observed to switch from her own personality to that of her father. Indeed, the “father” personality carries on conversations with the psychiatrist (1, pp. 138-141). Moreover, Ruth has amnesia: “I can’t remember anything after I started to feel his feelings” (1, p. 158).

Thus, Ruth has the two cardinal symptoms of multiple personality: 1. switching to an alternate personality, and 2. memory gaps (amnesia).

However, at the mid-point of this book (as far as I’ve read), Dr. Schatzman, an American psychiatrist living in London, has not mentioned multiple personality. In fact, he has seemed more interested in whether or not these “apparitions” (his choice of terms) are “real” spirits. So far, he has not found any evidence that they are.

1. Morton Schatzman, M.D. The Story of Ruth. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980.