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.

— Share site with friends.

Wednesday, February 5, 2020


“The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides: Title Character’s Unacknowledged Symptoms of Multiple Personality

Alicia is mute since killing her husband. And she’s sometimes heard a voice with a will of its own that could direct her behavior, making it an alternate personality. Moreover, she has had memory gaps for a huge part of her life:

“Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband” (1, p. 5)…“the years passed—and still Alicia didn’t speak” (1, p. 12)…“But if I’m really paying attention [Alicia writes in her diary, in relation to her creativity as a painter], really aware, I sometimes hear a whispering voice pointing me in the right direction. And if I give in to it, as an act faith, it leads me somewhere unexpected, not where I intended…and the result is independent of me, with a life force of its own” (1, p. 57)…“I don’t remember much of the walk…I don’t want to admit the truth to myself—that a huge part of my life is missing” (1, p. 119).

Alternate personalities and memory gaps are the two cardinal symptoms of multiple personality.

What about her mutism? Is mutism ever seen in multiple personality (aka dissociative identity disorder)? Yes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7649956

1. Alex Michaelides. The Silent Patient. New York, Celadon Books, 2019.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)