Suicide in multiple personality disorder may be “internal homicide,” when one personality kills another; e.g. Anna Karenina, Lily Bart. Sylvia Plath?

In yesterday’s post about New York Times reviews of the letters of Sylvia Plath, one of the Times reviewers had noted that Plath did her dissertation on Dostoevsky’s The Double, which, the reviewer said, ends when one personality kills the other.

That is not how I remember the end of The Double. My recollection is that it ends when the alternate personality has taken over, and the regular personality is being taken away to the mental hospital.

Be that as it may, it is a tragic fact, in real life, that suicide is a concern in persons who have multiple personality disorder (the clinical condition, as opposed to multiple personality trait, the normal version).

Part of the tragedy is that when one personality kills another, not only does it not realize that it will also be killing itself, but it may not understand that death is permanent. Alternate personalities may think that death is only sending the other personality deep inside so that it cannot come out and be in control. 

Such magical thinking about death may be based on the fact that multiple personality starts in childhood, and young children may not understand that death is permanent.

This is not to say that Sylvia Plath’s suicide could have been prevented if her psychiatrist had known she had multiple personality, and had treated her accordingly. It is possible, but not certain.