“Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman (post 3): Eleanor’s conversations with her “Mum” are virtually diagnostic of multiple personality

People with multiple personality usually hear the voices of their alternate personalities as loud thoughts or voices in their head. But some people with multiple personality are able to visualize their alternate personalities outside themselves, and this ability has been used in therapy: for example, the person visualizes their alternate personalities sitting in a group, and they discuss their problems.

Is that psychotic? No, because the person experiences these voices and visualizations as a subjective experience, something they know that other people cannot hear or see, something that is not objective.

Is it ordinary imagination? No. In ordinary imagination, the person doing the imagining feels they are producing and controlling what is seen and said. Whereas, in multiple personality, the other personalities are experienced as having minds of their own.

Thus, Eleanor’s conversations with her “Mum,” which may have been taking place every Wednesday for twenty years, are virtually diagnostic of multiple personality.