“Imaginary Friend” by Stephen Chbosky (post 5): Namelessness of “hissing lady” and “nice man,” and Protector Personalities who become Persecutors

One pervasive manifestation of multiple personality in this novel is that various nonpsychotic characters hear voices. It is not just Christopher and his mother. (The author seems to take it for granted that most people hear voices. But since most people don’t, it probably reflects the author’s own psychology.)

The novel’s other prominent manifestation of multiple personality is the namelessness of two important characters: “the hissing lady” and “the nice man.” Unlike real life, namelessness is common in multiple personality. And when you meet a nameless alternate personality, you usually refer to them by a salient characteristic, so that when you want to speak to them, they know it.

I am about 80% through this 700-page novel titled “Imaginary Friend,” and the nice man, whom Christopher had imagined to be his friend, has turned out to be a villain. Which brings up an old question related to multiple personality: Since it is supposed to be a psychological defense, how can you have an alternate personality who persecutes the person?

The explanation is the transformation of an alternate personality who was originally a protector personality into a persecutor personality. The way this often happens is that the protector personality becomes disgusted with the weakness or dysfunction of the host personality, and decides that things would be better and simpler if the regular personality were eliminated.

That is what happens at the end of Dostoevsky’s The Double, when the regular personality is committed to the hospital, and in other novels like Anna Karenina and The House of Mirth, when an alternate personality causes the regular personality to commit suicide. (Alternate personalities may be so convinced they are separate people that they don’t realize they will die, too).