“Your Symphony of Selves” by James Fadiman, Ph.D., and Jordan Gruber, J.D., says everyone, including the authors, has multiple personality

However, the book’s index (1, pp. 422-434), aside from ordinary “absentmindedness,” makes no reference to issues of memory, amnesia, or memory gaps, a cardinal feature of multiple personality.  Nor does it refer to childhood trauma, which is reported by most persons with multiple personality.  Indeed, by saying that everyone has multiple personality, the book inadvertently derides it.  The authors, who say they have it, are not neutral observers.  And they don’t say how they discovered it in themselves.  By using psychedelics?  James Fadiman is also author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide.

One of the main reasons for my interest in multiple personality is that it is so foreign to my own subjective experience.  If I hadn’t unexpectedly seen it in some of my patients, after I asked about memory gaps, I might never have believed it.  My experience of speaking with patients’ alternate personalities and then seeing the person switch back to their regular, host personality, who had amnesia for the conversation I just had with their alternate personality, was unforgettable, especially since the patient had no legal problems, or any other reason to fake it, and did not like the diagnosis, except that it explained certain things in their life that had puzzled them.

1. James Fadiman, PhD and Jordan Gruber, JD. Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who We Are. Rochester, Vermont, Park Street Press, 2020.