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.

Saturday, July 8, 2023

“Sybil”: The New York Times' Unprofessional Opinion


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/books/sybil-50th-anniversary.html


Professional Opinion

“Schreiber’s (1974) (1) account is both detailed enough and accurate enough to serve as mandatory clinical reading for students of MPD” (2, p. 35).


1. Schreiber FR (1974) Sybil. New York, Warner Paperbacks.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. NewYork, The Guilford Press, 1989.


Comment: Search “Sybil” in this blog for past discussion. And let me reemphasize that the least reliable aspect in any account of multiple personality is a bizarre history of abuse. It may turn out to be true—sometimes truth is stranger than fiction—but must be corroborated before being completely accepted as historical truth. After all, the thesis of this blog is that multiple personality is an asset for fiction writing.


In conclusion, be very skeptical about opinions on multiple personality from persons who have rarely, if ever, actually seen it, and that appear in publications like The New York Times, which has been a poor source of information on multiple personality. 

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