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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MPD Textbooks: — Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (a.k.a. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. —James G. Friesen, PhD. Uncovering the Mystery of MPD, (includes discussion of demonic possession) Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers,1997.

Monday, April 9, 2018


“Where the Past Begins (A Writer’s Memoir) by Amy Tan (post 4): Chooses not to think of her “benevolent companion when I write” as an alternate personality.

“It makes sense I would seek companionship to help me sort through confusing ideas, thoughts, and beliefs, mine and others’. My characters are already like companions in that way, although I am always aware that they are fictional ones I created. Yet I have periodically felt I have with me a spiritual companion who drops hints and guides me toward revelations, ones I never would have stumbled upon. At times, I am alarmed to read sentences I do not recall writing, or, even more disturbing, when I read thoughts penned in my journal that I don’t remember thinking. The thoughts are not contrary to what I believe. It’s just that I don’t remember thinking about those things at that particular time or in quite that way—which often seems to be more insightful than I could ever be. This isn’t the flip side of my personality or a fragmented psyche. Whatever it is, I don’t need to analyze it any further. I simply welcome this benevolent companion when I write…” (1, pp. 164-165).

1. Amy Tan. Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2017.
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