This Book Review Highlights The New York Times Blind Spot for Multiple Personality issues by never mentioning multiple personality

“An unnamed narrator for unknown reasons finds himself preparing to steal the identity of a man… Alas, before he can, a stranger appears at the door, dragging the narrator off to a psychiatric hospital and the reader into a narrative whose central subject seems to be the instability of the self and the mutable nature of human consciousness. Traumatic (childhood) experiences manifest later in unpredictable ways…” (1).

Also search “namelessness,” “nameless narrator,” and “childhood trauma” for relevant past posts.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/books/review/fuminori-nakamura-my-annihilation.html

Puzzling Politicians: Puzzling inconsistency may indicate multiple personality, which should not be mistaken for hypocrisy or partisanship

BLOG MYSTERY: Very Few Comments Ever Submitted

Would Professors of Literature, Psychology, and Psychiatry Ever Have Their Students Read This Blog?  Not Unless They Were Willing to Revise Their Lectures, Which They Never Like To Do

THIS BLOG IS BRILLIANT

Not because I’m more intelligent than you are; I may not be.  Not because I’m the only one to realize that many people with multiple personality are not mentally ill; other people know it.  Not because I realize that most novelists have it; some have virtually admitted it.  Not because I recognize unintentional symptoms of multiple personality in novels; other people could do that if they wanted to.

   

The brilliance of this blog is its recognition of the importance of its thesis to understanding human nature and literature.

Facing Reality: Alternate personalities believe in YOUR existence

THEY face reality.  You should, too.  An alternate personality is not a real person, but it is a part of a real person.

Warning to Psychiatrists and Psychologists: This site contradicts most professional training about multiple personality.

“How Can I Know What I Think Till I See What I Say?” (1)

This is possible if the person has a thinking (and talking or writing) alternate personality with whom the regular personality is not co-conscious.

See also (2).  This is possible if the regular personality hears an alternate personality as a voice in its head.

1. Quote Investigator:  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/12/11/know-say/ 

2. The Guardian: “Majority of authors ‘hear’ their characters speak, finds study.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/27/majority-of-authors-hear-their-characters-speak-finds-study

Do many fiction writers not boast because they have Impostor Syndrome?

Wikipedia’s entry on impostor syndrome quotes Maya Angelou as saying, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now.  I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

In Multiple Personification, a proposed new name for multiple personality or dissociative identity, personification is used as in definitions 4-6 (1):

personification  1. the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as a rhetorical figure.  2. the representation of a thing or abstraction in the form of a person, as in art.  3. the person or thing embodying a quality or the like; an embodiment or incarnation:  He is the personification of tact.  4. an imaginary person or creature conceived or figured to represent a thing or abstraction.  5. the act of personifying.  6. a character portrayal or representation in a dramatic or literary work.

Writers create characters with their normal version of multiple personality, multiple personality trait, as previously discussed.

1. Random House. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition. New York, Random House, 1986-2001.

Multiple Personification: Proposed Replacement for Multiple Personality and Dissociative Identity

Bad Names:  Multiple Personality (old name) and Dissociative Identity (new name since 1994)

“Multiple Personality” suggests multiple people, but it never meant that.

“Dissociative Identity” means nothing to most people.

As Seen in Past Posts: Writers, Professors, and Reviewers May Make Unreliable Interpretations Due to Not Recognizing Unintended, Unlabeled Symptoms of Multiple Personality 

Debunker Fallacies:  A Brief Review

Most debunkers of multiple personality have had little or no direct experience with people who have multiple personality.  They pander to other people who have never seen actual multiple personality.  The reason it has not been removed from the psychiatric diagnostic manual is that debunkers cannot cite legitimate research to support their position.

Debunkers think that multiple personality is imposed on patients by therapists who believe in it.  And it is certainly true that a belief in almost anything can be imposed on some people.  But that also means that a therapist’s belief that people have only one personality can be imposed on patients.  Debunkers somehow fail to address that possibility.  And since most persons with multiple personality have a single host personality, they usually do look like they have one personality.

Multiple personality is harder to impose upon patients than other diagnoses, because it is the craziest diagnosis that most patients can imagine.  It means that they often don’t know who they are or what they do!  Who would want to be like that?

It is true that persons with multiple personality may have false memories, as may most people.  And you should never believe memories without corroboration.  Indeed, memories in multiple personality may sometimes be imaginative fantasies, which is why multiple personality may be a core asset of fiction writers.

Multiple Personality: “I’m not THAT crazy!”

Doctor:  “In the past, you have been given various diagnoses; for example, bipolar and schizophrenia.  But maybe your true diagnosis is multiple personality.”

Patient:  “I’m not THAT crazy!”

[The idea that patients would want to fake multiple personality fails to realize that most patients think it would crazier than other diagnoses like schizophrenia.]

 Do psychotherapy clients conform to a therapist's belief that all people have only one personality?

A debunker of multiple personality may be a person who HAS multiple personality

Before I had diagnosed multiple personality in a number of patients who had not been suspected of having multiple personality, I was skeptical, because it was so foreign to my own psychology and training, but I was never a debunker.

New York Times misunderstands human facial anatomy, beauty, and cosmetics

Its article on cosmetics (1) refers to “supermodel cheekbones,” but women do not have prominent cheekbones.  They have prominent malar fat pads (2), which mimics the plumping of the cheeks when a person smiles (3).

1. Kristen Bateman. “Contouring is back. It is not what you remember.” New York Times, January 13, 2022.
2. Ira D. Papel. “Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.” Third Edition. New York, Thieme Medical Publishers, 2009.
3. Nakdimen, K. A. (1984). “The Physiognomic Basis of Sexual Stereotyping”.  American Journal of Psychiatry.  141 (4): 499-503.

Alternate Personalities like to hide.  They usually come and go incognito, because if you discover their name, you can call them out, and they fear you will try to get rid of them and keep the regular, host personality in control all the time.

Most fiction writers, literary professors, and psychologists don’t study, teach, and write about multiple personality trait, because they either don’t know about it or don’t know how to make it pay.

Why do many normal children have imaginary playmates?

Because their normal brain is practicing its ability to create alternate personalities or fictional characters.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s hard-to-explain signature may indicate a second personality

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/arts/design/sherlock-holmes-exhibition-grolier.html