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.

Friday, August 15, 2025

“Society of Lies” by Lauren Ling Brown: Maya, the protagonist, hears a reassuring voice in her head


“Relax. Everything’s fine. Dani is safe. You’re safe. Everyone is safe. Naomi will be here soon” (1, p. 5).


Comment: Above use of italics suggests an optimistic voice in Maya's head. But Maya soon learns that her sister Naomi is dead. And the rest of the novel may uncover the secrets and lies that led to her death.


Added 8/16/25: This novel has unreliable narration, which, as an honest reader, I don’t like, and I will not finish reading it. Moreover, I consider unreliable narration, in and of itself, to be suggestive of multiple personality trait in the author, because it reflects a psychology in which the author may be kept in the dark by her alternate writing personalities. In short, the psychology of this novel, as suggested by its title, is a psychology of lying, which is a common feature of multiple personality (2, pp. 78-79).


1. Lauren Ling Brown. Society of Lies. New York, Bantam, 2025. 

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

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