“Transformation” vs. “Switching”: How fiction writers and psychiatrists think of changing from one personality to another personality in multiple personality

Fiction writers tend to think of the different personalities in multiple personality as being like different people. And conceptually, to go from being one person to being another person would be a transformation.

In contrast, psychiatrists think of the different personalities in multiple personality as parts of the same person. So they think of going from one personality to another personality as switching from one part to another part of the same person.

Thus, when a character in a work of fiction is spoken of, or depicted, as having undergone “transformation,” the implication, intentionally or unintentionally, may be multiple personality.