“The Kiss” (post 1), a Memoir by Kathryn Harrison (1, 2)

I sent for this 1997 memoir after it was recently mentioned, favorably, in The New York Times Book Review. So far, I have read only up to the point where “the kiss” between the author and her father takes place (2), after which, she describes her attempt at denial, including her tendency toward having a memory gap, and hearing a voice in her head, two common symptoms of multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity):

“Bit by bit, layer by temporizing layer, I work to obliterate the truth…My boyfriend, threatened himself by what I revealed, colludes with me in the process. Together we forget what I said, even as privately I forget what my father did. It is as simple as only denial can be. Don’t think about it, I tell myself, but it seems to require an enormous effort of will…I realize I’m in a kind of shock…my voice won’t speak the words I hear in my head…I become one of the people to whom I wouldn’t mention such a thing as my father sticking his tongue in my mouth (1, pp. 74-75).

Comment: The above is not enough for a formal diagnosis of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder), but most novelists—as I argue in this blog—have only a milder, higher-functioning version, which I call “multiple personality trait” (as opposed to disorder).

I will add to the above after I finish reading this memoir and, in the future, a sample of Kathryn Harrison’s novels.

1. Kathryn Harrison. The Kiss, a Memoir. New York, Bard/Avon, 1997.

2. Wikipedia. “The Kiss (memoir) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(memoir). 

Multiple Personalities, Subpersonalities, and “Parts” 

Books on treating “Multiple Personality” (1989) and “Subpersonalities” (1990) were published about the same time, but neither book referenced the other. Was that a psychiatry/psychology issue?

1. John Rowan. Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us. New York, Routledge, 1990.

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

Comment: I’ve always disliked the expression that “whereas I think like this, another part of me thinks or likes that,” since I don’t think of myself as having “parts.” I think of myself as having aspects and moods. Therapy using the concept of subpersonalities may be very helpful in selected cases, but are subpersonalities really a form of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder) with a less-daunting name? 

PARTS: Not everyone has had imaginary playmates, becomes a novelist, may be highly hypnotizable, is religious, or has “parts.”

Comment: What would you add to, or subtract from, that list?

“Parts Psychology” by Jay Noricks, PhD: “The idea that we all have multiple personalities, but not necessarily a disorder…may at first be shocking…”

Preface (1, pp. xi-xiii)

“The idea that we all have multiple personalities—but not [necessarily] a disorder of personalities—may at first be shocking. But the evidence for this normal multiplicity among relatively ordinary people is so powerful that even the most skeptical of readers may change their minds before finishing the book…

“Of course, some problems take many years to resolve, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously labeled multiple personality disorder (MPD)…My purpose in excluding dissociative disorders is simply to avoid confusion. Otherwise it might be less clear that it is normal for people to have hidden parts of themselves…Over the last 10 years I have worked with more than 30 cases of DID and my caseload has included, at any given time, three to six clients with this diagnosis…” (1).

1. Jay Noricks, PhD. Parts Psychology (A Trauma-Based Self-State Therapy for Emotional Healing in Counseling and Psychotherapy: Case Studies in Normal Dissociation). Los Angeles, New University Press, 2011.

Comment: Multiple Personality is much more common than most people—including psychologists and psychiatrists—appreciate. Among psychiatrists who have most knowledge about multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity), it is known as a disorder of “hiddenness,” except during a crisis or when the personalities are addressed by name. The regular or “host” personality often has a memory gap for the period of time that an alternate had taken over.

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

“Parts Psychology: A Trauma-Based, Self-State Therapy with Case Studies in Normal Dissociation” by Jay Noricks PhD

In recent posts of my blog about the normal "multiple-personality trait” of many novelists—https://multiplewriters.blogspot.com/—I highlighted a recurrent issue: “parts." I then decided to search for books that addressed “parts” and “psychology,” and found Parts Psychology (1) whose subtitle describes it as “A Trauma-Based Self-State Therapy with “Case Studies in Normal Dissociation” (1). I also found No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, PhD, subtitled “Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with The Internal Family Systems Model" (2).

Psychologists have found their own approach to issues raised in the chapter on Dissociative Disorders in the psychiatric diagnostic manual [DSM-5] (3). But there may be similarities in the psychiatric treatment (4).

1. Jay Noricks PhD. Parts Psychology. Los Angeles. New University Press, 2011.

2. Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, No Bad Parts. Boulder Colorado, Sounds True, 2021.

3. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition [DSM-5]. Arlington VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013, pp. 291-307. 

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

“The Sum of my PARTS” (alternate personalities): my Memoir of Multiple Personality” (dissociative identity disorder) by Olga R. Trujillo

Comment: People who casually refer to themselves as having “parts” may have a version of multiple personality.

1. Olga R. Trujillo. The Sum of My Parts: a survivor’s story of Dissociative Identity Disorder. New Harbinger Publications, 2011.

“The Third Girl” (Molly Sutton Mysteries 1) by Nell Goddin: Molly's Parts and Voices

“Molly flopped her head back and laughed, even though some part of her noted that nothing was especially funny” (1, p. 38).

“Part of her brain knew that she was rationalizing…And there is always hope there has been no murder, the rationalizing part whispered” (1, p. 169).

(An italicized voice in her head, addresses Molly: “Right, you’re going to skip the first party in your new village…Could you be any lamer?" (1, p. 185). 

Comment: "Parts" and "Voices" in the head suggest that the author has "multiple personality trait," as discussed in many past posts of this blog.

 

1. Nell Goddin. The Third Girl (Molly Sutton Mysteries 1). Beignet Books, 2015. 

“Multiple Motives” (post 2) by Kassandra Lamb: Creatively, Subjectively Honest, Author’s Notes

I did keep reading this book, until I peeked at the back, and found a section of “Author’s Notes” (1, pp. 275-277), which included the following:

“Also, apologies to the Baltimore County Police Department for the fictional Detective Philips. I tried very hard to make him a more balanced human being, with some good as well as bad in him. But characters sometimes have a will of their own, and no matter what I did, he refused to be anything but obnoxious” (1, p. 277).

Comment: Psychologically, characters that have a will of their own are alternate personalities. And it was after reading many author interviews in which authors had made this same kind of “joke” that I finally realized, in a very real sense, subjectively, they were not joking—this was their creative experience. And as the old saying goes: “Truth is often spoken in jest.”

1. Kassandra Lamb. Multiple Motives. misterio press, 2011.

“Multiple Motives” (post 1) by Kassandra Lamb: Italics in Prologue

“The vehicle cruised sedately down the street.

Don’t want to be getting a speeding ticket and draw attention to ourselves, now do we?

The driver of the vehicle pulled into a parking place near the intersection. The target had crossed here the day before, striding briskly along the crosswalk like she owned the world.

Rage surged, threatening to explode.

It starts today. With her!

The rage subsided, temporarily appeased.

The numbers on the sign above the bank building rolled over from 11:56 to 11:57. She didn’t always go out to lunch, but that was okay.

If not now, then later. Either way, it starts today” (1, pp. 1-2).

Comment: Using the categories of italics I proposed in my May 22, 2025 post, the above prologue appears to use italics to suggest the voice of an alternate personality. I can’t say more until I read this novel.

1. Kassandra Lamb. Multiple Motives. misterio press, 2011. 

“But Not Forgotten” by B. J. Bourg: Two Different Uses for Italics

Italics for Voice of Alternate Personality

“What are you doing, Clint? You’ll make a fool out of yourself for sure. Why are you even here, anyway? What do you expect will happen?

I shook the voices out of my head. “To hell with it!" (1, p, 91).

Italics for emphasis

“Fine, y’all win. I’ll come in tomorrow and settle this shit” (1, p. 203).

1. B.J. Bourg. But Not Forgotten, A Clint Wolf Novel (Book 1),  WWW.BJBOURG.COM., 2015. 

“The New Couple in 5B” by Lisa Unger: Back Cover sets scene for this novel, plus a sample of Author’s dissociative, multiple-personality trait

"A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this haunting and propulsive thriller” (1, Back Cover).

“The room is dim, though it’s past noon..And I can’t move…my head is heavy on the pillow…There’s a part of me that wants to get up. She’s in there, the real me, the strong one, screaming, pull yourself together!” (1, p. 223).

Comment: The protagonist has “parts” (alternate personalities) and speaks with an italicized voice in her head. Search “parts” and “italicized” in this blog for their discussion in other novels.

1. Lisa Unger. The New Couple in 5B. Park Row Books, 2024.

“Love, Mom” by Iliana Xander

Mom, a famous novelist, has died. Her daughter tries to understand her mother from pages in her mother’s diary, which include: 

“My mind has been hazy lately. I did bizarre things and didn’t even remember doing them (1, p. 123). [That is a “memory gap.”]

Psychiatric Note: Memory gaps are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). (However, it is not a formal “disorder” (mental illness) unless it causes the novelist clinically significant distress and dysfunction).

Daughter's Comments: “There it is, the truth that friends and family never admit. And the truth is that Mom felt off quite often. Off in an unsettling way…Maybe she had a personality disorder. Or a multiple personalities disorder” (1, pp. 133-134).

1. Iliana Xander. Love, Mom. Vellum, 2024. 

“Look Closer” by David Ellis: Characters Narrate the Chapters, and one Character has an “Alter Ego,” suggestive of Multiple Personality

Narration

Chapters in this murder mystery are narrated in the first-person by the characters, which is an engaging format, but it suggests the characters have minds of their own, which is the essence of alternate personalities in multiple personality (2).

Alter Ego

One of the characters, Vicky, says, “I didn’t grow up in West Virginia. Vicky Lanier, my alter ego did. But my father was an avid hunter and took me with him sometimes. He’d take me to the shooting range, too, and let me fire his guns, at least his handguns” (1, p. 269). Search “alter ego” in this blog.

Comment: Later in this novel, does Vicky’s alter ego participate in a murder? I cite the above in support of this blog's thesis that many novelists have what I call “multiple personality trait,” a normal, creative version of multiple personality.

1. David Ellis. Look Closer. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022.

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

“Allegedly” by Tiffany D. Jackson: Protagonist’s reputation as a LIAR can be a diagnostic feature of Multiple Personality Disorder

“…Apparent pathological lying…is one of the best diagnostic predictors…for multiple personality disorder…Adult MPD patients will often recount that they acquired a reputation as liars in childhood…This may happen to all of us at some time or other, but MPD patients will have this experience frequently in childhood and fairly often as adults. Consequently, some MPD patients will become obsessed with “truth” as adults…

“Multiples are perceived by other people as lying when they deny doing things that they were seen to do. In most instances, this is because the personality that is denying the behavior is amnesic for the actions of another personality who actually performed the actions” (2, pp. 78-79).

Comment: I don’t know how the author came to choose the theme of lying for this novel (1), which never mentions multiple personality.

1. Tiffany D. Jackson. Allegedly. New York, HarperCollins, 2017.

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

“Losing the Atmosphere” a memoir by Vivian Conan: Memoir’s Statement on its Back Cover Includes a Multiple Personality Disorder Textbook Symptom

Back Cover:

“Vivian Conan grew up in two different worlds: Outside and Inside. Outside, she had friends, excelled in school, and was close to her cousins and brother. Inside, she saw faces that weren’t hers in her bedroom mirror…To others, her life seemed rich with work, friends music and boyfriends…But her mind and soul were filled with chaos and pain. Neither she nor her therapists could figure out why…” (1, Back Cover).)

1. Vivian Conan. Losing the Atmosphere: A Baffling Disorder, a Search for Help, and the Therapist Who Understood. New York, NY, GreenPoint Press, 2020.

Textbook Symptom:

“MPD patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror (2, p. 62).

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

Note: Please search author's name in this blog for additional information in my past posts.

“Authoritarian Nightmare” by John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer: President Trump may have “Multiple Personality Trait,” which is Not a Mental Illness

In the past, I have read of Mr. Trump’s use of pseudonyms (1), possibly used merely as a joke, which were not sufficient to diagnose multiple personality disorder, especially since he was too high-functioning to be considered mentally ill. However, that left open the possibility that he had what I call “multiple personality trait,” which is not a psychiatric diagnosis, but merely an imaginative, creative asset which I suspect is present in many novelists.

Recently, in Authoritarian Nightmare by John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer, I was interested to learn that President Trump has a history of referring to “Trump” in the third person, as though he sometimes thought of “Trump” as a separate person or alternate personality:

“It could not be clearer. Every day, in every way, on every issue, Trump now wanted all GOP senators to support what “Trump” (notice the third person) wanted” (2, p. 93).

1. Wikipedia. “Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump.”

2. John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer. Authoritarian Nightmare: The Ongoing Threat of Trump’s Followers. Brooklyn, Melville House, 2020. 

“ALL OF ME” (a memoir of Multiple Personality Disorder) by Kim Noble

Comment: At that time, mental health professionals had recognized her “dissociation” (memory gaps), which made her disorganized, but they had not distinguished between her kind of disorganization and the kind seen in a real psychosis like schizophrenia. So neither she nor most of her therapists had discovered her many nonpsychotic, undiagnosed, alternate personalities. But eventually they did make the correct diagnosis (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder).

1. Kim Noble with Jeff Hudson. All of me: How I learned to live with the many personalities sharing my body. Chicago Review Press, 2011.

When Being Transgender and Having Dissociative Identity (Multiple Personality) Occur in the same person, is it by Chance or Causation?

They DO sometimes occur in the same person:

1. Emma Grove. The Third Person. Drawn & Quarterly, 2022.

2. https://academic.oup.com/smoa/article/10/5/100553/7040918

Comment: I don't know the answer. Who does?

“Sad Tiger” memoir of childhood rape by Neige Sinno concludes with euphemism for multiple personality: her “parts”

"The part of me that couldn’t hold it together has gone where she had to go, the other part, the part that wanted to stay, is me. But the split isn’t so simple, we are constantly thinking about each other. She hasn’t gone far…I hear her often, her ragged breath, the catch in her voice, I see her reflection in the mirror…She is always there, waiting, for I do not know what” (1, p. 131).

1. Neige Sinno. Sad Tiger. Trans. Natasha Lehrer. New York, Seven Stories Press, 2023.

Why Multiple Personality is Hidden and Overlooked

Patients tend to fear, avoid, and hide symptoms of multiple personality, because it is the oddest thing they can think of, and would seem to mean that they are crazy. But the fact is that the chapter on psychotic (“crazy”) disorders in the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association does not even mention multiple personality disorder. It does mention Delusional Disorder (1, p. 90), Brief Psychotic Disorder,” Schizophreniform Disorder (1, p. 96), Schizophrenia (1, p 99), Schizoaffective Disorder (1, p. 105), Psychotic Disorder Due to Another Medical Condition (1, p.115), and Catatonia (1, p. 119). The manual does not mention multiple personality disorder (renamed Dissociative Identity Disorder) until its chapter on Dissociative Disorders (1, pp. 291-307).

Comment: Most persons with Dissociative Identity Disorder are not psychotic, and it is as common as schizophrenia (1, p. 294), but most psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists have not had much training in how to diagnose and treat it. Putnam’s textbook is a good introduction (2).

1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013.

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

"And Only to Deceive" by Tasha Alexander: Author says the story invented itself

“I knew I wanted to write about an English woman in the late Victorian period and had a strong image of her standing on the top of the cliff path on the Greek island of Santorini, one of my very favorite places. Once I started asking questions about how she came to be there, the story started to invent itself” (1, p. 312).

Comment: The author says that she did not experience herself as figuring out the story, but that the story invented itself, as if the story had a mind of its own, which is a split-personality creative process.

1. Tasha Alexander. And Only to Deceive. New York, Harper, 2005.