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.

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Thursday, April 13, 2023

Biology and Multiple Personality: Two Interesting Approaches to Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

There is no known perfect explanation for the puzzling variety of sexual orientation and gender identity. But Biology and Multiple Personality have two interesting approaches.


Simon LeVay, a gay biologist, summarizes what is known from the biological point of view. I recommend his book (1).


But you may have encountered puzzling cases that biology can’t explain, some of which might be accounted for by behind-the-scenes, multiple personalities with alternate gender identities. Please click the link below to the article by Christopher Rosik (2), which introduces that point of view.


1. Simon LeVay. Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation, Second Edition. Oxford University Press, 2011/2017.

2. Christopher H. Rosik. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 31(3), Fall 2012. Opposite-gender identity states in Dissociative Identity Disorder: psychodynamic insights into a subset of same-sex behavior and attractions. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A342175861/AONE?u=nysl_oweb&sid=googleScholar&xid=6307cbea

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