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.

— Share site with friends.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Flagrant Lies as a symptom of multiple personality


One question to screen for multiple personality: Did you have a reputation as a liar when you were a child?  A child may get that reputation when an alternate personality is seen doing things that the host personality later denies (due to a memory gap for the witnessed behavior).


Preposterous lies may also occur when the person is an adult if an alternate personality has a fixed belief.  For example, an alter may believe he is a winner who can never lose and that, if he ever loses, it must be that he was cheated.  His host personality may know very well that he lost, but his winner personality may take control and insist that he won.


Another example is an abuser personality who assaults his wife, but his loving personality denies that he would ever do such a thing, or that something must have come over him, because he really loves his wife and would never hurt her.  And his loving personality may be so sincere that his wife forgives him.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)