A Myth about Multiple Personality: The person may have only two personalities, and if they are aware of each other, then it is not real multiple personality.

Some psychiatrists and others have the misconception that if a person has been found to have two personalities, and they are aware of each other, then it is not real multiple personality.

Indeed, one UK psychiatric textbook calls this the “double phenomenon,” which, it says, is much more common than multiple personality.

However, it is not unusual, at first, to think that a person with multiple personality has only two personalities.

But when you know the person better, and eventually meet all of their personalities, you will find that they have various degrees of mutual awareness, ranging from those who are aware of all the others to those who are aware of only themselves (1, pp. 114-115).

1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.