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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Sunday, June 10, 2018


“The Gin Closet” by Leslie Jamison (post 3): Child Abuse, Prostitution, Alcoholism, Suicide, Anorexia Nervosa, Blackouts, Multiple Personality

Tilly, who was sexually abused as a child (1, pp. 146-147), becomes a prostitute, an alcoholic, and commits suicide. Stella has a history of anorexia nervosa and nonalcoholic blackouts.

Child abuse makes it more likely that a person will have prostitution (2), alcoholism (3), and multiple personality (4). Anorexia nervosa and suicide are surprisingly common in people with multiple personality disorder (4). Memory gaps that are not due to intoxication (or other medical condition) are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality (4).

This novel does not develop any of those connections.

1. Leslie Jamison. The Gin Closet. New York, Free Press, 2010.
2. Mimi H. Silbert, Ayala M. Pines. “Sexual child abuse as an antecedent to prostitution,” in Child Abuse & Neglect., Vol. 5, Issue 4, 1981, pp. 407-11.
3. Kathleen T. Brady MD PhD, Sudie E. Back PhD. “Childhood Trauma, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Alcohol Dependence” in https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arcr344/408-413.htm
4. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis & Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.
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