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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Sunday, April 14, 2024

“Listen for the Lie” (post 2) by Amy Tintera: Protagonist has both Dissociative (Psychogenic) Amnesia and Dissociative Identity (Multiple Personality)


Lucy has had dissociative (psychogenic) amnesia for the circumstances of her best friend’s death. Memory gaps are a major symptom of multiple personality. The protagonist also has a voice in her head that has a mind of its own, which is the essence of alternate personalities.


And the fact that Amy Tintera made Lucy a published author (1, p. 247) suggests that she identified with her protagonist, and, thus, may have the higher-functioning version of multiple personality, multiple personality trait, a creative asset.


1. Amy Tintera. Listen for the Lie. New York, Celadon, 2024. 

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