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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Monday, April 22, 2024

“Sociopath” (post 4) by Patric Gagne, PhD: Sociopathy and/or Multiple Personality?

Near the beginning of her memoir, Patric Gagne reports hearing a voice in her head (see post 2). Do sociopaths hear voices? And why doesn’t she ever mention it again?


Near the end of her memoir, she says: “I’m one person with David. A different person with you. And invisible to just about everyone else. That has to stop. I need to accept who I am all the time. I need to be who I am all the time. That’s the only way I’ll ever be able to stabilize my life” (1, p. 315).


Does she have sociopathy, dissociative identity (multiple personality) or both? A person who calls herself a liar warrants verification, especially since lying may occur in both sociopathy and multiple personality (search “lying” in this blog).


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

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