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, May 5, 2023

“Lessons in Chemistry” (post 2) by Bonnie Garmus: Elizabeth Suddenly Dissociates While Discussing Her Daughter’s Day in Elementary School


Elizabeth asks her daughter if she enjoyed elementary school that day. Her daughter says that no one likes school. Elizabeth replies that it surely is possible to enjoy school. Like when you went to college? her daughter asks.


Elizabeth then has “a sudden sharp vision” floating in front of her (1, p. 190). Her daughter asks if Elizabeth is okay, because without realizing it, Elizabeth has covered her face with her hands.


Elizabeth quickly reorients herself and finishes the conversation with her daughter (1, pp. 189-190).


Comment: The above looks like a multiple personality scenario in which Elizabeth switches to an alternate personality with traumatic memories. But why would there be anything suggestive of multiple personality in this novel? Is it part of the plot or part of the author?


1. Bonnie Garmus. Lessons in Chemistry. New York, Doubleday, 2022. 

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