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.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Caution: Don’t ignore multiple personality, but don’t upset people


If you are not a licensed mental heath professional and have not been engaged by someone to diagnose and treat them, do not ask them if they have memory gaps or hear voices in their head that seem to have minds of their own. They may feel these questions are offensive, upsetting, and none of your business.


If you are a licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, etc., your professional training probably omitted, or gave only passing, dismissive mention, to multiple personality (also called “dissociative identity”). So I suggest you begin by reading Putnam for the usually missed and undiagnosed, clinical disorder (1).


If you and the other person are interested in the psychology of fiction writers and how their multiple personality trait (a nonclinical, literary asset) is reflected in their works, refer them to this blog (2).


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

2. Kenneth A. Nakdimen, MD. https://multiplewriters.blogspot.com/

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