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, February 3, 2017

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” by Edward Albee (post 4): Why was the play’s original title “The Exorcism” (which became the title of its third act)?

I haven’t begun to read it yet, but I understand that the play’s climax is the revelation that George and Martha’s adult son, whom they have mentioned throughout the play, turns out to have been imaginary. And since the play is secular, with no religious rites, I wonder why their finally giving up belief in their imaginary son is called an “exorcism.”

The title of the play or even the title of the third act is too prominent a use of the word “exorcism” if the author really felt it was nothing more than a metaphor for dispelling illusions. After all, there are two traditional uses for exorcism: 1. expelling demons, and 2. expelling alternate personalities whom you mistake for demons, as illustrated in the following abstract of a journal article:

Exorcism rituals: effects on multiple personality disorder patients
Author: Fraser, George A.
Journal: Dissociation, Vol. 6, No. 4, p. 239-244, December 1993

Abstract: The persistent belief that spiritual entities can "possess" mere mortals has resulted in various rituals and ceremonies to expel these unwanted intruders. This act has been known as exorcism and is sanctioned even today by many traditional religions. This is pertinent to the field of multiple personality disorder because often the presentation or influence of dissociated ego states fulfills the conceptualized criteria of those who believe in the reality of spirit possession. 
        This paper addresses the issues of a group of multiple personality patients, treated by the author, who previously had been exposed to exorcism rites. Seven patients were interviewed about the effects of these ceremonies on their ego functioning. The results varied from mildly negative to severely disruptive; they included numbing of religious fervor, struggling physically with the exorcist, attempting suicide, creating demon alters, and believing that an alter had been banished and was perpetually suffering in hell.
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