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.

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Friday, April 14, 2023

“Bi: the hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality” by Julia Shaw: Statement by woman in study of bisexuality looks like multiple personality 


The author says that all of the 22 women in the study identified as bisexual, but only the one she quotes “echoed my own experience,” as follows:


“I think that the most important thing anyone should understand about bisexual women is that it’s not just bisexual in terms of what you like, it’s also bisexual in terms of who you are. Sometimes I feel like a boy, sometimes I feel like a girl. And I can’t describe it any more than that. Sometimes I feel really macho and sometimes I feel as feminine as Scarlett O’Hara. You know, it just changes from day to day and maybe it’s partly a mood swing can affect it, but honestly, like, I mean sometimes I’ll be dressed in combat fatigues, the next day I’ll be wearing like a mini-dress and high heels” (1, pp. 100-101).


Comment: The above quote appears to describe switching between male and female alternate personalities in classic multiple personality.


Added Apr. 16: I infer that the author is not mentally ill with multiple personality disorder, and only has multiple personality trait, but that she ignores the issue, as most people do.


1. Julia Shaw. Bi: the hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality. New York, Abrams Press, 2022. 

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