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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Saturday, December 23, 2023

“Deacon King Kong” (post 2) by James McBride: False premise that protagonist’s out-of-character behavior and memory gap were due to alcohol intoxication


At the beginning of this novel (1), the protagonist shoots a drug dealer in front of many witnesses, but can’t remember doing it. Why is alcohol abuse the only diagnosis considered?


Textbook: Out-of-character behavior with a memory gap for doing it is typical of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder).

“Unfortunately, many MPD patients would rather admit to the more socially acceptable drug or alcohol blackouts than admit that they do not really know why they 'lose time' ” (2, p. 61). 


Comment: Does the protagonist ever lose time when sober? I’ll keep reading.


1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.

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

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