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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Friday, December 15, 2023

“Remarkably Bright Creatures” (post 2) by Shelby Van Pelt: Conversing, Vocalizations, Diagnosis, the Octopus and the Experience of Multiple Personality


Conversing and Diagnosis

“Every so often, one [of the humans] will pause here [at the octopus tank in the aquarium]. With these, “I [Marcellus, the octopus protagonist] (see post 1] always play a game. I unfurl my arms…and the human draws nearer. Then I pull my mantle to the front of the tank and stare into its eyes. The human calls its companions to come and look. As soon as I hear their footsteps around the bend, I jet back behind my rock, leaving nothing but a whoosh of water. How predictable humans are! With one exception: The elderly female [Tova Sullivan]…does not play my games. Instead, she speaks to me. We…converse” (1, p. 67).


“The diagnosis of MPD [multiple personality disorder] can only be made after the clinician has met one or more of the alternate personalities (‘alters’) and determined that at least one alternate personality is distinct and takes full control of the individual’s behavior from time to time…


“…in about half of all cases the meeting is initiated by one or more alternate personality who ‘come out’ and identify themselves as being different from the patient…In many instances the therapist has never even suspected that the patient has MPD…


“…The simplest case is one in which an alternate personality emerges, identifies himself or herself, and proceeds to talk with the therapist…


“…Another form of contact is through inner vocalizations. The patient [the host or regular personality] may ‘hear’ the alter speak as an inner voice within, often as one of the ‘voices’ that the patient has been hearing for years. [But a formal diagnosis can be made only after one or more alters have ‘come out’] (2, pp. 89-94).


Comment: Also, please click this link on the Octopus and Experience of Multiple Personality. Pamela Covert, PhD.  https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/August-2022/The-Fascinating-Connection-Between-Octopi-and-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder


1. Shelby Van Pelt. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.

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

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