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.

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Controversy: Are schizophrenia and multiple personality mutually exclusive? Can a person have both? Claire Bien’s memoir raises the issue.

DSM-5, the psychiatric diagnostic manual, assumes that schizophrenia and multiple personality (dissociative identity) are completely different and mutually exclusive.

But the person whose memoir I am reading (1) seems to have had symptoms of both schizophrenia (a psychosis) and multiple personality (not a psychosis).

For example, there is an episode in which she is studying a textbook on editing. In the passages she is reading, she is supposed to recognize editing mistakes. Suddenly, she hears a voice commenting on what she is reading.

She is frightened. How could the voice know what she is reading? There must be cameras in the room! She can’t find any cameras, but suspects they must be hidden in the lighting fixtures. So she smashes all the light bulbs in the room. Her behavior seems blatantly psychotic.

However, her study of editing makes sense. She is a nonfiction writer who gets employment at magazines. And what does the voice say to her? It tells her to look back two paragraphs in what she is reading, because she had missed a mistake in editing. She does look back, and finds that the voice was right.

The problem is that schizophrenic voices do not have a reputation for helpfully guiding a person to correctly perceive objective reality (in this case, the editing mistake). But an alternate personality might do just that.

So did the author have schizophrenia, multiple personality, neither, or both? As I continue to read the memoir, I am trying to decide.

1. Claire Bien. Hearing Voices, Living Fully: Living With The Voices in My Head. Foreword by Larry Davidson, PhD. London and Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016.
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)