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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Sunday, April 21, 2024

“Sociopath” (post 3) by Patric Gagne, PhD: Interviewing Voices


In this memoir (1), Patric is occasionally seen by her psychotherapist, who—in my reading, so far—has not made any reference to the fact that Patric hears a voice (see post 2). Has her therapist ever asked Patric if she hears voices? Therapists have to ask, because patients may not volunteer such information, especially if it is nothing new.


A competent therapist will not only ask the patient if she hears a rational voice, but will try to interview the voice, which is often possible, once the voice does not fear that the therapist will try to kill off the voice.


“The patient may hear the alternate personality speak as an inner voice within, often as one of the ‘voices’ that the patient has been hearing for years. The patient can then relay these internal responses to the therapist” (2, p. 94).


1. Patric Gagne, PhD. Sociopath (a memoir). New York, Simon & Schuster, 2024.

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

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