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.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Most Psychiatrists Do Not Have An Informed Opinion About Multiple Personality: Another Reason

I have a number of past posts on why most psychiatrists miss the diagnosis of multiple personality: They are clueless, because the mental status examination that they are taught to use fails to inquire about memory gaps (search “mental status”).

But there is an important additional reason that most psychiatrists ignore, and may be prejudiced against, multiple personality: The primary treatment of multiple personality is a certain kind of psychotherapy (1), not medication.

And as you can see from the following recent article in Psychiatric News (newspaper of The American Psychiatric Association), most psychiatrists nowadays do not know or do psychotherapy: “Should Psychotherapy Be a Psychiatric Subspecialty?” https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2020.3b6

 Added April 11, 2020: It is not just most psychiatrists who don't have an informed opinion about multiple personality. It is also academic and social psychologists, who do not usually do psychotherapy. It is also clinical psychologists and other psychotherapists who do psychotherapy, but have never learned how to diagnose and treat multiple personality, because it is a subspecialty that is not included in most professional training.

 Multiple personality disorder (renamed dissociative identity disorder) is in the official diagnostic manual, DSM-5 (and was in DSM-III and DSM-IV previously), because professionals who do know its diagnosis and treatment have published peer-reviewed studies to prove its validity.

1. Frank W. Putnam, M.D. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.
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)