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.

MPD Textbooks: — Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (a.k.a. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. —James G. Friesen, PhD. Uncovering the Mystery of MPD, (includes discussion of demonic possession) Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers,1997.

Monday, December 28, 2020

“The Pessoa Syndrome” (2013) by Katia Mitova


This is a link to a complete article by Professor Mitova, for whom I gave a link to only an abstract back in 2016 (see below). In the abstract below, her “multiple personality order” (not disorder) is similar to my “multiple personality trait” (not disorder), which I previously called "normal multiple personality."


Added Dec. 29: I have never met Mitova, but she is both a scholar and a poet. Her scholarship is evident. Her being a poet means that her approach to this subject may reflect inside knowledge. So I recommend the following single link:


https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/36819001/Mitova_Pessoa_Syndrome_2013.pdf?1425253218=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DThe_Pessoa_Syndrome.pdf&Expires=1611882698&Signature=bEt0K~VcYDMxR3oHCmP-M~Fj5z8DTS0aDesDiv4sAAtydu0QXo9yWb7L4GQZuY-3RqLmv7TgVWVcOF57VT05sDjrSy1akOu7B6~9wcFq03EyX24lZ5O9S6M~PkyC78voivftzCFrgR4Vc1InT-tAlZKhDlvGK9eJ55xbyYFGxbgpNP1lB3R8rAtJ2QX9l2iSWlCqcuizquJ73glakX80aPh6ht1yBWtvEBQLRw31J7AnIRaQD9ipx1E4~AedIxNhUr0jyrKESwvJWz0c2IU3JgwViLzxF30aQMpz81Zolx4KBQz8O888Bc8bs3uFNMNCr7qVGKyjSibxhqI61YyYyg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA


Note: The above link may periodically expire. You may find a currently active link by searching the essay on Google Scholar.


August 13, 2016

Professors of Literature who understand importance of Multiple Personality in Literary Criticism: Jeremy Hawthorn, Katia Mitova, Heike Schwarz.


We may not agree on everything, but I honor and commend their psychiatric literacy, and hope that other scholars follow their example.


Jeremy Hawthorn. Multiple Personality and the Disintegration of Literary Character: From Oliver Goldsmith to Sylvia Plath. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1983.


Katia Mitova. “Artistic Creativity as a ‘Multiple Personality Order’: The Case of Fernando Pessoa.” https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9781848882034/BP000016.xml


Heike Schwarz. Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction. Transcript-Verlag, 2013. 

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