[anti-willo-solivan]

hii!! this isn't meant to be mean or anything, but do you have sources for the fact endos started as a hate group?

HELLO ANON!!! It's not mean at all and I'm very happy you're asking for sources! This is gonna be a bit long as its a timeline and its sources.

Word Count; 3,984

Character Count: 26,839

Estimated Reading Time: 25 minutes

1989–1994: Early CDD Newsletters, Forums, and Online Communities

1989: Many Voices

Many Voices was established in 1989 as the first newsletter created specifically for people with complex dissociative disorders (pwCDDs). Although it remains available online today, it is no longer actively updated.

1991: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery (ASAR)

The Usenet group alt.sexual.abuse.recovery was created in 1991. It became home to a large community of CDD systems.

1994: ASARian Incorporated

In 1994, alt.sexual.abuse.recovery evolved into ASARian Incorporated. ASARian provided peer support, web hosting, unix shell accounts, and resources for people with DID/MPD

1994: alt.support.dissociation

Also in 1994, the Usenet group alt.support.dissociation was created. It would go on to become the longest-running support group for people with dissociative disorders. The website remains active, but the last post was made in 2024 as Usenet had declined in its own usage.

1995–1997: Astraea's Web and the Emergence of Non-Disordered Plurality

Astraea's Website

In 1995, Astraea launched what is considered the first website dedicated to discussing non-disordered plurality. This was the first known website to explicitly address plurality outside of a clinical or disorder-based framework.

Coining of Natural Multiplicity

Around 1996, Astraea introduced the term natural multiplicity. The concept proposed that having multiple personalities was not inherently disordered. Instead, it was framed as a naturally occurring phenomenon that could arise spontaneously, rather than solely through trauma or dissociation. You can find the archive here.

Criticism of Astraea's Web

While initially appealing to some, Astraea's work has been heavily criticized. Critics argue that its sources and rhetoric reflect of extreme ableism, saneism, and dangerous ideological positions that have caused lasting harm There have also been highly credible claims of plagiarism, misattribution, and strong anti-psychiatry bias. Every source is here, here, here, and here

Astraea's Web is widely regarded as the starting point of what would later become the endogenic community.

1996–1999: The Development of Mid-Continuum

Sometime in 1996, an early internet plural named Vickis coined the term mid-continuum. The label quickly gained popularity among both dissociative and non-dissociative plural people.

Mid-continuum was rooted in the dissociative continuum model developed by Braun in 1988. Braun's model conceptualized dissociation as existing on a spectrum ranging from: normal experiences (such as daydreaming or zoning out) to polyfragmented DID at the far end. By 1997 and earlier, many DID-focused websites—including Astraea's Web—were sharing and discussing this model. Archive of article by Joan A. Turkus, M.D. (1997)

Proof that this article was shared on Astraea’s Web.

What Mid-Continuum Meant

1. It Was Based on a Psychological Model

Many people in the dissociative community identified with Braun's dissociative continuum. Vickis created the term for individuals who felt they fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. The label was referred to as 'mid-continuum dissociation' or simply mid-continuum for short. People using the label were often called mid-continuum dissociatives. Vickis later created a webpage devoted to the concept called The Wonderful World of the MidContinuum.

2. It Was Created for Dissociative People

In 1997, Vickis announced the new website on alt.support.dissociation. In that announcement, mid-continuum was explicitly described as a label for dissociative people who did not meet all criteria for DID. On the website, Vickis explained that mid-continuum applied to people who experienced dissociated parts, fell somewhere in the middle of Braun's dissociative continuum—This included experiences ranging from different roles in different situations, inner children, ego states, parts or fragments that did not feel like whole people, and having some, but not all, diagnostic criteria for DID.

A quote from the homepage:

“Everyone dissociates. At one end of the dissociative continuum is ‘normal’ or ‘common’ dissociation that nearly everyone engages in[…] At the other end are the behaviors that characterize ‘classical’ multiples, who may have large numbers of very distinct insiders with little internal communication, serious difficulties with time loss, amnesia, and so on.

Between these two extremes, there is a lot of gray. Ranging from having different ‘roles’ that you live out in different situations, to having an ‘inner child’ or ‘inner children’ with varying degrees of separateness, to having ‘ego states,’ ‘parts’ or ‘fragments’ that don’t seem to be whole people, to having some but not all of the diagnostic criteria for what is now known as DID[…]”

  Message Archive

Mid-Continuum Website Archive

3. It Was Created Out of Respect for People with DID

At the time, DID was still commonly referred to as MPD or simply multiplicity within online dissociative communities. Vickis and others believed it would be disrespectful to call themselves multiple if they did not have DID. They felt that doing so could minimize the struggles of people with DID. This was a major reason for creating the mid-continuum label. Vickis specifically noted that they did not experience time loss, had never experienced amnesia in that way, did not have communication barriers between parts, and did not face the same struggles as those further along the dissociative continuum Because of this, they did not want to equate their experiences with those of people living with DID.

From their essay on the subject (here):

“[…] someone elsewhere in this thread said something like ‘I don’t want to call myself multiple because I don’t want to minimize the sufferings of those who are really multiple’. And I can really relate to that. That’s why I say I’m not-quite-multiple usually. Because I don’t lose time and never have, I can’t possibly know what that’s like… I don’t have barriers that prevent communication between parts… I don’t have the struggles that people who are further down the continuum from me have, and I would never want to minimize their issues by claiming that my own are the same.”

4. Mid-Continuum and OSDD

Much of Vickis' writing strongly resembles what is now recognized as OSDD (formerly DDNOS). However, OSDD/DDNOS was rarely mentioned directly in their earlier work. It might've been due to the lack of research surrounding OSDD then—as it only was properly researched in the 2000's and 2010's—and Vickis wanting to use a less clinical term.

In 1999, Vickis remarked that people identifying as mid-continuum often received an OSDD diagnosis if they pursued formal evaluation. This was only mentioned briefly.

Late 1990's: The Precursor to Median

Over several years, mid-continuum became increasingly popular across the internet. It attracted a broad range of people within plural communities. As the label grew, anti-DID/OSDD and anti-psychiatry communities began objecting to it. Their objections were largely tied to mid-continuum's origins in dissociative theory and psychology.

Dark Personalities listed many psychological terms as derogatory to empowered and natural multiples, including DID, alter, and host. Mid-continuum itself also became a target of criticism.

The Push for a Replacement Term

Dark Personalities stated: "Since many people feel the idea of a continuum to be inaccurate, many are seeking a new term instead of mid-continuum." This effort to replace mid-continuum would eventually lead, in the 2000s, to the rise of the term median.

2000s: Median Replaces Mid-Continuum

An anti-DID/OSDD organization later coined the term median as a replacement for mid-continuum. Median became significantly more popular. As a result, mid-continuum gradually fell out of common use. On the Pavilion website, Astraea’s Web wrote an essay on the midcontinuum and why they came up with the median label to replace it.

“It’s important to allow the concept to be inclusive of everyone who fits, regardless of past abuse history or origins, much as is currently being done for ‘multiplicity.’ With its roots in the abuse-dissociation model, midcontinuum is too limiting; it is no longer useful to us. Median creates a certain measure of psychological distance and gives the concept a fresh start, without the dissociative baggage of the past, and embraces all who feel they are more than one.”

(X X X)

ARCHIVE , ALSO APPLIED TO BELOW TIMELINE; Pavillion's Policies Archive — "MPD/DID vs. Multiple" Pavillion's Library Archive — "A brief history of Midcontinuum" The Lancers' Codex — "Addressing the MPD/DID Issue"

2002–2007: The Rise of Median, Natural Multiplicity Activism, and Organized Anti-DID Campaigns

2003: Median Replaces Mid-Continuum

In 2003, the natural multiplicity organizations The Lancers and Pavilion Hall decided that mid-continuum was too rooted in psychology and dissociation. They argued that it was overly limiting because it was based on the abuse-dissociation model and did not adequately include people whose plurality was understood as non-traumagenic or non-dissociative.

As a result, they coined the term median to replace mid-continuum. Unlike mid-continuum, which was grounded in Braun's dissociative continuum model, median was intentionally broader and more abstract. Pavilion described plurality not as a linear spectrum, but as a sphere with infinitely many possible points, emphasizing fluidity, diversity, and nonlinear identity. According to their framework, someone could identify as median if they experienced themselves as multiple selves, but did not perceive those selves as fully independent.

This shift represented a significant philosophical departure. Mid-continuum had originally been created by dissociative people for dissociative people. Median, by contrast, was created by non-dissociative natural multiplicity advocates who believed mid-continuum was too psychologically grounded and insufficiently inclusive of their experiences.

Median and the Exclusion of DID/OSDD Systems

The Lancers and Pavilion Hall did not intend for people with DID or OSDD to use the median label. Their philosophy held that people with dissociative disorders were not truly plural, multiple, or median unless they no longer met diagnostic criteria. In their view, only "functional" and "non-disordered" individuals could properly claim these identities. If someone with DID or OSDD functioned according to their standards, they were considered no longer disordered.

Because their definitions of plurality and medianhood were often broad and vague, many people with DID and OSDD nevertheless identified with the concept despite the organizations' intentions.

1998–2014: Empowered Multiplicity, MultiGardens, and the Natural Multiplicity Movement

Empowered Multiplicity and MultiGardens

Out of the natural multiplicity movement emerged the concept of empowered multiplicity, which placed a strong emphasis on functionality and distinguished itself from what proponents called "survivor multiples."

In 1999, MultiGardens was established, though it was short-lived. Not long afterward, the person who coined the term "empowered multiplicity" stated that it had never been intended to exclude trauma survivors and that they had not meant to create so much conflict. Despite this, they continued to criticize survivors, as well as those who sought fusion or therapeutic treatment.

Natural Multiplicity as a Movement

By the early 2000s, natural multiplicity had evolved into a full-fledged movement. Its central aim was to establish that plural experiences were not inherently pathological. Many participants insisted that childhood trauma or abuse could not cause plurality or multiplicity. Even to this day, plurals insist that pwCDDs are looking to blame someone for something they already had—pushing the narrative that pwCDDs were multiple prior to abuse and would've been multiple if it hadn't happened—and that we have internalized pluralphobia because we 'hate ourselves'

Natural multiplicity was not simply about advocating for non-disordered plurality; it also positioned itself in opposition to people with complex dissociative disorders (pwCDDs). Astraea and associated groups actively sought to challenge the legitimacy of DID and MPD as diagnoses, including attempts to have DID removed from the DSM.

Even after the term natural multiple began to be replaced by endogenic around 2014—largely because "natural" implied that systems with CDDs were somehow unnatural—the underlying ideological framework remained much the same. The earliest documented use of the term endogenic dates to 2014.

2000–2010s: The DID Boycott and Anti-Psychiatry Campaigns

For a whole decade, activists associated with the natural multiplicity and anti-psychiatry movements campaigned to challenge, revise, or remove the DID diagnosis from the DSM. This movement was deeply intertwined with both anti-psychology rhetoric and natural multiplicity ideology.

Prominent essays from this campaign included:

“Astraea’s Multiple Personality FAQ” by Astraea’s Web, archived in 2000.

“No More…” by Astraea’s Web, archived in 2000.

“Removing Diagnostic Labels” by Astraea’s Web, archived in 2001.

“Why We Are Not MPD/DID” by Dark Personalities, archived in 2001.

“Some Thoughts on Verbiage” by a guest on Astraea’s Web, archived in 2001.

“We don’t have Multiple Personality Disorder” by The Shire, archived in 2001.

“Terminology” by Those That Walk, archived in 2002.

“The Politics of Language” by Bent Spoons, archived in 2002.

“Fixing The DSM” by a guest on Astraea’s Web, archived in 2003.

This boycott significantly harmed people with complex dissociative disorders. Boycotters frequently argued that pwCDDs were not real, or that their diagnoses should be removed from diagnostic manuals. Natural and empowered multiplicity communities often paired their advocacy with broader opposition to psychiatry and psychology.

At a time when DID research was already sparse, controversial, and often inaccurate, these campaigns further complicated public and clinical understanding of dissociative disorders.

2002–2003: "Fixing The DSM"

"Fixing The DSM" was an essay written by The Jinkies in 2002 and published on Astraea's Web in 2003. It had previously appeared on Pavilion Hall's LiveJournal forum and in Pavilion's library. (X X X)

The essay argued that the DID and OSDD diagnoses should either be revised to better represent non-dissociative plural experiences or removed from the DSM entirely.

Jinkies contended that people without DID or OSDD might feel excluded from plural identity because they did not meet diagnostic criteria. They criticized the DSM for defining DID and OSDD in terms of dissociation, arguing that this invalidated non-dissociative plural experiences.

The essay ultimately proposed replacing DID with the term Ego-Dystonic Plurality, a phrase coined by the creator of Astraea's Web. Modeled after the historical diagnosis of Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality, this proposed label would have stripped DID and OSDD of their established clinical frameworks.

Jinkies concluded by asserting that non-disordered experiences do not belong in the DSM. While that statement is true in itself, DID and OSDD are inherently disordered conditions, making the proposal fundamentally incompatible with the realities of those diagnoses.

2002: The Formation of The Lancers and Pavilion Hall

In June 2002, two sister organizations were formed: The Lancers and Pavilion Hall. Both were self-described natural multiplicity activist groups. Though inactive today, their influence remains substantial. Their last known activity appears to have been in 2015.

These organizations were responsible for coining the term median system, creating the Layman's Guide to Multiplicity, and popularizing the idea of plurality as an umbrella term. Their impact on modern plural terminology and discourse remains significant.

The Lancers

Formation and Purpose; The Lancers were founded to "resolve the conflict between plural and non-plural types" and to foster understanding between singlets, medians, and multiples. Despite this stated goal, they did not support DID or what they disparagingly referred to as "survivorwhine sites."

Membership Requirements; Membership was restricted to natural multiples. People with DID or OSDD were explicitly excluded.

Applicants were required to sign the In Essence Pledge—viewed here and here—affirming that they were functioning and sane. They were also expected to publicly display this pledge on their websites and follow the organization's codex. Failure to comply could result in removal.

The organization strongly emphasized appearing non-disordered. Prospective members who were not yet functioning well enough to present themselves as "strong, sane, and responsible" were discouraged from joining. They stated that if your system “cannot yet work functionally together in daily life, do not ask to join. If you wish to help the Lancers but haven't got things sufficiently together to be able to present to the world as strong, sane, and responsible, look elsewhere for help -- Astraea's is a good place to begin [...]” (X)

The Codex; The Lancers developed a body of internal theory known as the Codex, which outlined their views on natural multiplicity. Among its concepts were "paths," later renamed "fires," though these terms did not gain widespread use. Their most enduring contribution was the term median, which replaced mid-continuum.

Pavilion Hall

Formation and Purpose; Pavilion Hall was founded around the same time as The Lancers by the same group of people. Like The Lancers, Pavilion excluded people with DID and OSDD.

Pavilion described itself as an activist organization dedicated to promoting positive views of healthy multiplicity. Its goals included challenging the classification of multiplicity as a mental disorder, establishing common ground among plurals, and promoting natural multiplicity theories in both academic and non-academic settings. [X]

Membership; Members were expected to live as healthy multiples so as not to undermine their mission of ending the idea that multiplicity was a disorder. While signing the In Essence Pledge was encouraged, it was not mandatory. [X]

Hierarchy; You can read a more in-depth explanation of these positions on their page here

Pavilion had a five-tier organizational hierarchy:

Frontliners: The Frontliners’ main job was to seek out places where they could spread the word of natural multiplicity. This mainly included any space specifically centering around DID/OSDD—forums (discussed more below), websites (X), and articles (X), as well as mental health clinics (X), and even dissociative specialists such as from the ISSTD (X). They also occasionally sought out spiritual or unorthodox spaces to “convert,” such as a soulbonding forum. (X)They usually referred to this job as responding to “action alerts.” This part of Pavilion was surprisingly coordinated. You can find an action alerts page on their website here. You can also find an action alerts tag on their forums here.Another job for Frontliners was to “monitor” DID/OSDD forums, find people who they suspected didn’t actually have DID/OSDD, and bring them into the natural multiplicity community. (X X X) Here is a page they wrote on their justification behind this. The Pavilion website also had an entire section called The Armory, which was dedicated to hosting resources specifically for Frontliners to do this sort of work. (X)

Scholars: These were the members of Pavilion who wrote the essays that the Frontliners could use in their arguments or discourse. They also supported the organization through other means such as researching counterarguments against psychology, or creating new websites for Pavilion to spread their purpose.

Knights/Coordinators: This was a temporary position. Members became Coordinators for the duration that they were running a project for Pavilion. One example of a Pavilion project would be Project Bananarama (later renamed Paperchase), in which they mailed out over 200 Pavilion brochures to psychologists and dissociative specialists. (X)

Diplomats: These were the members who spread Pavilion’s purpose offline in real life areas. One example of Pavilion’s offline activism would be slipping notes about natural multiplicity inside of DID/OSDD books. (X)

Castles/Directors: This appeared to be the highest level of the hierarchy. Directors were the leaders of Pavilion who kept an eye on every other members’ activity and projects.

One notable Pavilion project, originally called Project Bananarama and later renamed Paperchase, involved mailing more than 200 brochures promoting natural multiplicity to psychologists and dissociative specialists. MEMBERS; An archived list of The Lancer’s members can be found here. An archived list of Pavilion’s members can be found here. Another archived list of Pavilion’s members can be found here.

Concerning Activities of The Lancers and Pavilion

Documented behaviors included:

Mailing hundreds of natural multiplicity brochures to dissociative specialists

Editing and vandalizing the DID Wikipedia page (SEE BELOW)

Arguing that people with DID could not truly be multiple until they were no longer "dysfunctional"  (X X)

Ridiculing PTSD- and DID-focused events, writings, and individuals (X X)

Joking about disrupting DID/OSDD conventions  (X)

Monitoring DID/OSDD forums for potential recruits (SEE HIERARCHY ABOVE)

Coordinating "action alerts" to target specific spaces or publications (SEE HIERARCHY ABOVE)

Joking about "converting" others to natural multiplicity (X)

Drawing inspiration from anti-DID groups such as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) (X)

Openly advocating for the removal of DID and OSDD from diagnostic manuals (X)

ARCHIVES

The Lancers’ Website Archive

The Lancers’ Public LiveJournal Forum

The Lancers’ Codex Archive

Pavilion’s Website Archive

Pavilions’ Public LiveJournal Forum

The Layman’s Guide to Multiplicity

Lancers/Pavilions’ Multiplicity Brochure

2003–2006: Pavilion and the DID Wikipedia Article

In February 2003, Pavilion members coordinated an effort to edit the Wikipedia article on Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Using Pavilion's "action alert" system, Astraea Household encouraged members to revise the article. Pavilion member Amorpha drafted and implemented substantial edits. You can read their rough draft here.

These changes shifted the article's focus toward controversy and introduced extensive material about "healthy multiplicity" (also called natural multiplicity). The revised article suggested that many multiples were not diagnosed, did not need therapy, did not have histories of childhood trauma, and did not wish to integrate

It also proposed that DID should be revised or removed from the DSM to accommodate natural multiples.

“Because such multiples do not experience their condition as disordered or sick in any way, some have proposed that the diagnosis of DID be removed from the DSM entirely, or revised to classify multiples who have difficulty communicating and sharing memories and/or wish to integrate.”

These additions remained in the article until 2006, when they were removed for lacking relevance to DID. Shortly afterward, the broader controversy section was also removed. Archive of natural/healthy multiplicity removal & reasoning. Archive of controversy removal & reasoning. archive of the edit Amorpha made to the Wikipedia article

2005–2007: The Natural/Healthy Multiplicity Wikipedia Article

A separate Wikipedia article on natural or healthy multiplicity was later created. This article blended concepts of natural multiplicity with the clinical treatment goal of healthy multiplicity (also called resolution). Here is an archive of the edit Amorpha made to the Wikipedia article.

It also reflected Pavilion's belief that people with DID or OSDD who cooperated well internally no longer truly had those disorders.

The article relied heavily on sources created by Pavilion members, including:

Astraea's Web

Collective Phenomenon

Their shared LiveJournal community

The Layman's Guide to Multiplicity

Pavilion Hall

The Lancers

In 2007, the article was nominated for deletion due to its reliance on blogs, forums, and original research rather than reliable secondary sources. The nomination was successful, and the article was deleted.

This deletion highlighted a central problem for natural multiplicity advocates: despite extensive searching, they were unable to find substantial professional or academic support for the concept as an innate, non-pathological state. You can read the thread about it here.  Amorpha expressed frustration towards the reasons for deletion, specifically regarding 'reliable' sources. They explained that no matter how much they searched the Internet for proof, they could not find any professionals discussing natural multiplicity. The only thing they could find on healthy multiplicity was, obviously, related to CDD treatment.

“We helped to work on that article. It was deleted for containing ‘too much original research’ and ‘not enough acceptable sources.’ The sources thing was the real problem-- we've really tried combing the Internet for that, but they're looking for ‘secondary sources’, aka articles by doctors or journalists or someone working in some ‘professional’ capacity. And there honestly just isn't much. Most of the professionally-written material we've come across that mentions healthy multiplicity in any way approached it from the standpoint that it's all MPD/DID, and proposing the ‘radical’ idea that multiples don't have to integrate (though, of course, it's always suggested that they're only supposed to be capable of living independently and non-integrated after being in therapy for years). I don't object to using those as sources, as I think a big point to be emphasized in the whole concept of healthy multiplicity is that a system can start out disordered and come to be healthy and stable in time, but what we needed and couldn't find were sources talking about it as a natural state of being-- not necessarily in terms of a pathological deviation from the norm[...]”

tag list: @anti-willo-utsuro , @anti-willo-valerie , @anti-willo-siffrin , @anti-willo-purpleguy , @anti-willo-sonicexe , @anti-willo-2017x , @anti-willo-c00lkidd , @anti-willo-joker-junior

[guardianssystem]

Tumblr Post of our Endogenic and Non-traumagenic Plurality Research

THIS POST IS OUDATED. PLEASE READ THE UPDATED VERSION HERE

Post by @guardianssystem · 4 images

💬 0  🔁 1  ❤️ 2 · Endogenic Plurality Research & Information 2.0 - by a Traumagenic System · This is a new post for our updated document! We

Endogenic & Non-Traumagenic Plurality

By Guardians System, a diagnosed traumagenic DID system with PTSD and CPTSD

For use by everyone, to be read by EVERYONE

Brought to you by sysmeds who say “I’m not reading all that” (/j)

Feel free to DM on Twitter at GuardiansSystemOpen for anonymous questions on Tellonym also under GuardiansSystemOtherwise, just comment! :)

Lists of Links

Put together by community members! (Not thoroughly checked)

Plurality/Multiplicity + Syscourse Resources and Findings

Pastebin by ButterflyBlood - contains info from the DSM-3 to the DSM-V, medical info, community info, Tulpa info, syscourse info, and a video

Cambrian's Thread of Experts

Thread by the Cambrian Crew - contains info from Dr Eric Yarbrough (Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association), info from Dr Nijenhuis and Van Der Hart (two of the writers of the Theory of Structural Dissociation), info from the ICD-11 and DSM-V-TR, and an interview by Dr Richard Loewenstein (lead editor of the DSM-V’s section on DIssociative Disorders)

Studies into non-disordered and/or endogenic plurality

Pastebin by Oliviaset - contains multiple science/government links and a video

Collected Plurality Info - 8 pages of resources - Fractal System

Document by The Fractal System - contains explanations on multiple types of plurality and references links to each, contains community info, history info, academic info, and more

Scientific Papers on Endogenic Plurality - r/Plural

Post and comments by numerous systems/supporters - contains a massive amount of uncategorised links to all types of information on non-traumagenic plurality

Multiplicity Links - SARAH K REECE

Site by Sarah K Reece - a previously diagnosed traumagenic DID system that no longer fits the criteria but is still a system, links focus mainly on general helpful system information

Scientific Articles on Nondisordered Systems

Document by Tabellenblatt1 (?) - contains info specific to non-disordered plurality, including the interview by Dr Richard Loewenstein

Ex Uno Plures - Articles

Community site by Plures House - contains explanations on plurality, info on living plural, info on personal experiences, medical info, philosophical info, social info, and syscourse info

An Endogenic Proof Masterlist - Plural Anomaly

Document by Plural Anomaly - contains community info, academic info, and criticisms on the Theory of Structural Dissociation

Plurality Studies - Multiplicity and Plurality Wiki

Wiki made by numerous community members - contains uncategorised abstracts from medical info and info on Tulpas

Non-Traumagenic & Endogenic System Information

General medical/clinical studies and research

It's just a body: A community-based participatory exploration of the experiences and health care needs for transgender plural people

Study by numerous people including a system - repeatedly references and explains multiple types of plurality, both traumagenic and non-traumagenic

Multiplicity: An Explorative Interview Study on Personal Experiences of People with Multiple Selves

Study by numerous people - uses some outdated language, however, explores how systems exist both with and without Dissociative Identity Disorder

Conceptualising multiplicity spectrum experiences: a systematic review and thematic synthesis

Study by numerous people - explores how multiplicity exists outside of Dissociative Identity Disorder in a medical context in order to recommend appropriate health services

Critiquing the Requirement of Oneness over Multiplicity: An Examination of  Dissociative Identity (Disorder) in Five Clinical Texts (Alternative Link)

Study by Kymbra Clayton - explains how multiple selves can be healthy without the need for singularity

NORMAL DIMENSIONS OF MULTIPLE PERSONALITY WITHOUT AMNESIA

Study by multiple people - uses slightly outdated language, describes how multiplicity can be considered natural without the dissociative disorders, and how the dissociative disorders could simply be expanding upon multiplicity

Cognitive processes in dissociation: An analysis of core theoretical assumptions

Study by numerous people - discusses potentially healthy dissociation and the existence of dissociation without trauma

MODES OF EXISTENCE: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL POLYPSYCHISM

Study by Mick Cooper - discusses alternative ways for multiple selves to exist

A plurality of selves? An illustration of polypsychism in a recovered addict

Study by Peter T.F. Raggatt - discusses the normality of non-traumagenic multiplicity and different ways for natural plurality to exist

A Jungian Perspective on the Dissociability of the Self

Study by Brian R. Skea - includes multiple mentions of Freud, extremely explicit and triggering language, and repeated use of outdated terms, however helps to provide an understanding of much older views on non-traumagenic dissociation and plurality

TRANSGENDER Mental Health - chapter 11

Book by Dr. Eric Yarbrough of the American Psychiatric Association - states repeatedly throughout the chapter that plurality is only a part of dissociative identity disorder and exists without the disorder, as well as trauma only being reported in some cases of plurality and that trauma is not the only cause for plurality, and states that plurality itself is only a collection of alters

"I've Learned to Treat my Characters like People": Varieties of Agency and Interaction of Writers' Experiences of their Characters' Voices

Study by multiple people - describes authors’ common experience of accidental multiplicity caused by their characters gaining autonomy

Dissociation in Trauma: A New Definition and Comparison with Previous Formulations

Article by Ellert R S Nijenhuis and Onno van der Hart (two of the writers of the Theory of Structural Dissociation) - page 27, at the end of the article, they recognise mediumship and similar practices as a “division of personality,” which is what they refer to the dissociative disorders as

Exploring the Experiences of Young People with Multiplicity

Research by Zarah Eve and Sarah Perry - begins with multiplicity only sometimes being applicable for a DID/OSDD diagnosis, and continues that multiplicity itself and the dissociative disorders are not the same, as well as some respondents not associating their multiplicity with trauma alongside the dissociative disorders not applying to some of the respondents, and having a section for some multiplicity not being based in trauma

Comparison of Brazilian spiritist mediumship and dissociative identity disorder

Study by multiple people - in comparing Dissociative Identity Disorder with Brazilian Spiritist Mediumship, it was found the two shared very similar results, only that the Mediumship results appeared slightly healthier than DID

Tulpamancy

Studies and research specifically on Tulpas, though can apply to other plurality

Tibetan Buddhist with a Tulpa - Opinion on Plurality

Post by Dharma Yokeyodasampa - a Tibetan Buddhist with a more traditional Tulpa asking community members for questions, discussions include what they think about plurality, western Tulpamancy, how their Tulpa feels, and the difference between western Tulpamancy and the Tibetan practice. (This is a post compiling and explaining most of it, with a response from Dharma.)

Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas

Study by multiple people - examines and explores what Tulpas are, what they do, their role, Tulpa experiences, some history, and more

Sentient companions predicted and modeled into existence: explaining the Tulpa phenomenon

Study by Kaj Sotala - describes a theory on how Tulpas may be psychologically caused via “feedback loops” (can also be applied to various other types of plurality, such as multiplicity caused by authors/artists and caused by other disorders)

A Time for Tulpas

Thesis by Nick Stager - discusses what a Tulpa is, experiences with Tulpas, the development of Tulpas, how other practices may be similar, how an author can accidentally create Tulpas, and more

Tracking the Tulpa - Exploring the "Tibetan" Origins of a Contemporary Paranormal Idea

Book by Natasha L. Mikles and Joseph P. Laycock - explains what Tulpas are, how Tulpas are created both intentionally and unintentionally, some of the history behind Tulpa, and Tulpas based on theosophy instead of the Tibetan practice

Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences

Study by Jacob J. Isler - explains what Tulpamancy is and how it can differ from Dissociative Identity Disorder but still be plural 

Paranormalizing the Popular through the Tibetan Tulpa: Or what the next Dalai Lama, the X Files and Affect Theory (might) have in common

Article by Ben Joffe - explains what Tulpas are, how Tulpas develop, Tulpa experiences in the outside world, the difference between Tulpamancy and the Tibetan practice, some of the history behind Tulpas, Theosophy-related Tulpas, and Tibetan Sprulpa experiences

Making Friends - Transcript of a Podcast on Tulpas

(Slightly incorrect: more info here) Discussion by multiple people - explains multiple personal experiences with a Tulpa, actions of a Tulpa, accidental creation of Tulpas through writing, Tulpas taking over the physical body, Tulpas having a different identity, purposeful creation of Tulpas, discussions with professionals (Richard J. Loewenstein,) the difference between Tulpas and psychosis, the similarity between Tulpas and Dissociative Identity Disorder, how without distress then it can’t be disordered, and more

Daring to Hear Voices

Dalai Lama - Buddhist practices are open to those who need them

Clinical Information

Helpful medical information not specifically related to non-traumagenic systems

DID Brain Pattern Study Doesn't Measure Up - December 2018

Critique by Spot&Cerberus - discusses the multiple flaws with the MRI scan on DID patients

Moral Status and the Treatment of DID Study by Timothy J. Bane - discusses the current known treatments for DID in the context of integration being commonly used, how it may be unethical and unhealthy to force integration, and that a multiple can healthily exist

DID, OSDD, and UDD Diagnostic Guide (NZ)

Diagnostic guide by ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) - the New Zealand guide to diagnosing patients with DID, OSDD, and UDD, includes history of the diagnosis, problems with the diagnosis, alternative diagnoses, requirements for a diagnosis, what to avoid in a diagnosis, what to look for in a diagnosis, and similar

The Theory of Structural Dissociation

Theory by multiple people - the most commonly used theory to explain dissociation, often specifically related to dissociative disorders

Problems with the Theory of Structural Dissociation

Research by multiple people - discusses multiple problems with the Theory of Structural Dissociation, including it being a theory, the discarding of derealisation, depersonalisation, dissociative fugue, dissociative amnesia, the lack of association with trauma and PTSD in the DSM-V, and proposes some different ideas

ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics

Book by the World Health Ogranisation - Dissociative disorders on 6B64

DSM DID ALTERATIONS

DSM-V-TR

DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition)

Book by the American Psychiatric Association - Dissociative Disorders on page 336

DSM-IV-TR

DSM-IV

DSM-III-R

DSM-III

DSM-II-SPECIAL

DSM-II

DSM-I-SPECIAL

DSM-I

Plural History

Explanations and references to different parts of plural history

Plural History - 1811

Collection by Lb Lee - contains multiple parts of history in which systems of all types have existed (there are 4 different chapters)

A Partial History of Plural Self-Advocacy

Collection by Alt H - describes times in history starting from 1987 when non-traumagenic plural advocacy was recorded

It's Not Just a Tumblr Thing - Kerry Dawkins

Article by Ex Uno Plures - contains references in history to plurality outside of and before Tumblr

A Brief History of the Use of "System" in a Non-DID Space

Collection by Lb Lee - describes the history of the word “system” being used to describe those with multiple selves, and how it isn’t a disorder-specific term

A Quick'N'Dirty History of "System" as Plural Slang

Collection by Lb Lee - explains the history of the word “system” and the different uses

"Endogenic" was not coined by Freud

Collection by Sophie in Wonderland - a discussion on the anti-endos claim that “endogenic” was coined by Freud

Origin of the term Endogenic

Explanation by the Lunastus Collective - details how the term “endogenic” came to be created, what led up to it, and what happened after

I saw a post saying we should just believe RAMCOA surivors... okay... so how about this one?

Explanation by Sophie in Wonderland - describes how and why anti-endos think “system hopping” was stolen by endogenic systems from RAMCOA systems, including an explanation from the RAMCOA system that anti-endos reference

Community Explanations

Explanations on endogenic plurality by community members (sources are used)

Debunking the Anti-Endo Carrd - Guardians System

To be updated

What do Sysmeds say That is Transphobic/TERF Rhetoric?

Post by multiple people - a discussion on the comparison of sysmeds and transmeds, and how their arguments and the language they use is the same

Why Not Just Use Thoughtform?

Collection by Sophie in Wonderland and Olivia Set - describes why some parogenic systems prefer using Tulpa over Thoughtform 

Debunking Sysmeds - Claims and Rebuttals

Carrd by Ozymandias& - lists claims that anti-endos make against endogenic systems, and critiques the claims alongside referencing studies

I would define a plural system as having multiple, compartmentalised, self-conscious agents - SophieInWonderland

Collection by Sophie in Wonderland - an explanation of the validity of endogenic and non-traumagenic systems complete with referenced research and studies

Studies and Research into Endogenic and Non-Disordered Plurality

Masterpost - Academia on Endogenic and non-traumagenic plurality

Post by Inclusive Syscourse - contains an explanation on the validity of endogenic and non-traumagenic plurality complete with referenced research

Claims There is No Research On Endogenics

Post by Unknown - a list of research on endogenic and non-traumagenic plurality alongside explanations and descriptions

Origins of Plurality and Levels of Dissociation

Study by The Phoenixes - uses the DES to gain insight into plurality not caused by trauma

The Tulpa Carrd - explain the nature and origins of Tulpamancy and what surrounds it

Carrd by Unknown - lists an explanation and some history of Tulpamancy alongside references to research

Likely Origins of "Tulpamancy is Cultural Appropriation"

Post by the Dragonheart System - critiques a Carrd claiming that Tulpamancy is cultural appropriation, referencing research and studies

Resources

General helpful resources for all systems

Multiplicity Wiki - A wiki by plurals and multiples, for plurals and multiples

Wiki by multiple people - contains terms, definitions, and general information on all types of plurality and multiplicity

Layman's Guide to Multiplicity

Guide by Unknown - contains terms, definitions, information, explanations, and experiences on multiple types of plurality

The Plural Association - For Dissociative Identity Disorder & all other forms of Multiplicity under the Plural umbrella

Organisation by the Stronghold System (?) - contains help sites for all types of struggling systems, alongside helpful information and articles on multiple areas

Pluralpedia - the collaborative plurality dictionary

Dictionary by multiple people - contains a massive amount of information on the majority of plural terms and history

Endogenic Hub -  a site dedicated to endogenic plurality

Hub by the Hordes System - contains information and experiences on multiple types of non-traumagenic plurality, alongside explanations of what plurality is

More Than One - Plurality (or multiplicity) is the existence of multiple self-aware entities inside one physical brain

Site by Unknown - contains information on terms, different system origins, denounces myths about plurality, and different plural experiences

The Dissociative Initiative - For, by, and about people with multiplicity, dissociation, and amnesia

Run by Sarah K Reece - a support group for systems that contains different information and resources on plurality

Tulpa Info - "For Science"

Guide by Unknown - multiple different languages, explains what a Tulpa is, why they can exist, and where to begin when making a Tulpa

----------------------------

Feel free to share this post and/or the document with anybody. We're open to (genuine) criticism about our links or socument if something's wrong. You're also welcome to tag us in anything or DM us, with questions or to talk about our links or to respond to somebody. We are a pro-endo, diagnosed traumagenic DID system, with PTSD and CPTSD. We collectively use phe/phex/phins, and go by Guardians.

Please always rely on the document over this post, it's much more up to date.

Guardians' Links | Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch | Linktree

Links to where we're connected

[moleyreads]

Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders Reconsidered: Beyond Sociocognitive and Trauma Models Toward a Transtheoretical Framework (Lynn et al., 2022) (x)

Proponents of the [Post-Traumatic Model] (Brand et al. 2016, p. 258) contend that “DID can be overlooked due to the polysymptomatic profile and patients’ tendency to be ashamed and avoidant about revealing their dissociative symptoms.” [...]

However, another possibility is that DID is easily overlooked because cardinal symptoms (e.g., personality states, alters) are often absent prior to treatment or suggestive questioning. In this etiological scenario, the complex polysymptomatic profile does not “become” DID until iatrogenic and sociocultural influences shape its expression into the features of the disorder.

[moleyreads]

i subscribe to this reading... i can believe that the 'image' of DID (multiple personality) disseminated through media and clung to in its diagnostic profile incentivises folk to adopt this manner of seeing themselves (learned cultural model), and is what causes such low rates of diagnosis in complex dissociative folks who have not yet adopted this manner of seeing themselves. chewing on this. this is why multiplicity needs to be disassociated from the diagnostic profile !!!!!!! there is no disordered way of making sense of yourself... only disabling perceptions / experiences that are reinforced by introjected / crystallised beliefs...

i feel the danger is always in the so-called scientifically-legitimised DID 'other' that encourages folks who practice multiplicity to see themselves as fundamentally different to other people and fundamentally different between their subselves. this is always what i'm concerned with as it becomes clearer that multiplicity is a cultural practice that coalesces with and sometimes worsens legitimate dissociative / posttraumatic experiences in folks w DID due to its embeddedness in its diagnostic criteria. it is always ok to practice multiplicity as long as it is understood as a tool and model and not as a harrowing truth... but the current culture(s) indiscriminately encourage the latter

[moleyreads]

Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders Reconsidered: Beyond Sociocognitive and Trauma Models Toward a Transtheoretical Framework (Lynn et al., 2022) (x)

Proponents of the [Post-Traumatic Model] (Brand et al. 2016, p. 258) contend that “DID can be overlooked due to the polysymptomatic profile and patients’ tendency to be ashamed and avoidant about revealing their dissociative symptoms.” [...]

However, another possibility is that DID is easily overlooked because cardinal symptoms (e.g., personality states, alters) are often absent prior to treatment or suggestive questioning. In this etiological scenario, the complex polysymptomatic profile does not “become” DID until iatrogenic and sociocultural influences shape its expression into the features of the disorder.

[moleyreads]

i've really glossed over this bit of the ISSTD guidelines in the past, but this really is the crux of DID. it's PTSD except in certain modes you subconsciously dissociatively don't deem experiences yours so you are numbed to it, and don't always react as if it is 'your' traumatic memory. it's really not very complicated or strange a concept.

[moleyreads]

never getting impostor syndrome about anything i write ever again

[moleyreads]

Rewriting the Soul (Hacking, 1998)

An account of multiplicity can quickly turn into a freak show. Indeed P. T. Barnum probably did invite one seeming multiple to join the circus. Multiples have done service for Geraldo Rivera and Oprah Winfrey. Those shows have an important role in modern American life, but they sensationalize, they stereotype, they are the circuses of our days.

[moleyreads]

DSM-III Casebook (APA, 1981)

"A 42-year-old woman, accompanied by her husband, sought psychiatric consultation, primarily at the husband's request. She described a number of marital difficulties of an unexceptional nature and appeared to lapse into periods of daydreaming during the evaluation. Independently her husband reported that on occasion she would leave the house suddenly, dressed in a manner quite different from her customary sedate appearance, and not return for 12 to 36 hours. At other times, after some minor family argument, she would withdraw into a corner of the room, sit on the floor, curl up, and talk as if she were a young girl. [...] When disputes arose, producing clear signs of emotional withdrawal in her husband, she would retreat to the bedroom, dress in flamboyant clothes, and leave the house without a word. During these episodes she would experience herself as Frieda, the girl friend of the Soviet soldier who had molested her. She would meet a man at a nearby bar and propose a sexual liaison, only to belittle his masculinity before any physical involvement occurred. The other incidents, in which she appeared to her husband to curl up on the floor and talk as if she were a young girl, occurred after arguments with her children over issues of discipline, especially their failure to keep their room clean and complete their homework on time. At these times the patient would reexperience, as real, her wartime reveries with her imaginary companion. Following completion of the interview under hypnosis, the patient had no memory of Frieda.""

"Sudden and dramatic changes in behavior can occur in a variety of mental disorders, such as Schizophrenia, Psychogenic Amnesia, and Psychogenic Fugue. In this case, however, there is no evidence of psychotic symptoms; and there are repeated shifts of both identity and complex behavior patterns, neither of which are present in Psychogenic Amnesia or Fugue. The presence of several distinct personalities, each of which at some time determines the patient's behavior, is characteristic of the rare disorder Multiple Personality."

[moleyreads]

mpd history is a joke because wdym the guy i first encountered through the banger line "Do I mean that there were no multiples before [a publicised 1875 case]? Yes." is also the author of one of the most influential texts about mpds cultural history in america

[moleyreads]

im cooked because i need to decide if i should focus on my angry opinions re: dehumanisation of the DID subject or if i want to focus more on mapping the influences / relationships / histories of DID language in a neutral manner to illuminate that discourse (i can already see that id love to extend the latter to widespread plural cultures)

[moleyreads]

ive already written 3k / 8k and what i already have down will need further editing so i keep my focus narrow because i need to the word count is nottt forgiving

[moleyreads]

im cooked because i need to decide if i should focus on my angry opinions re: dehumanisation of the DID subject or if i want to focus more on mapping the influences / relationships / histories of DID language in a neutral manner to illuminate that discourse (i can already see that id love to extend the latter to widespread plural cultures)

[moleyreads]

got some really helpful feedback from my supervisor about what the word for the framework im using is and got pointed to established work on this critical approach, which is awesome. except i need to be much Much awake to figure out how i can restructure my essay to convey that im studying the genealogy of DID's constructed symptomology (ie. why is DID conceptualised the way it is, why is it conveyed the way it is, and why is that conveyance interpreted the way it is)

[moleyreads]

i cannot emphasise how cooked i am

[moleyreads]

got some really helpful feedback from my supervisor about what the word for the framework im using is and got pointed to established work on this critical approach, which is awesome. except i need to be much Much awake to figure out how i can restructure my essay to convey that im studying the genealogy of DID's constructed symptomology (ie. why is DID conceptualised the way it is, why is it conveyed the way it is, and why is that conveyance interpreted the way it is)

[moleyreads]

Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction Heike Schwarz, 2014 key notes, chapters 0-8. google doc version here.

this book gives really excellent insight into the history of dissociation, multiple personality and MPD/DID, and in particular studies the interactions between fictional depiction and clinical / social practice.

my poor fingers have finally finished transcribing all the sections from this book that i underlined for use in my dissertation.

feel free to have a read as well.

0. Introduction

"Despite the renaming of the disorder [...] the general notion of the disorder still stuck to the exaggerated and more observable form of MPD."

"the mysterious inner fragmentation into separate identities has been exceedingly used in fictional works such as novels or films with a hyperbolical performativity [...]. Although the [APA] changed the name of MPD to DID in order to stress the inner fragmentation rather than emphasize the proliferation of innumerous distinct entities, the disorder continues to be perceived, both in popular culture and in fictional works, as the existence of two or more persons within one body."

"This study [book] develops the theory of MPD and DID as a "culture-embedded syndrome". Not only psychiatric cases alone contribute to pop psychology. But it seems fairly clear that fictional characters [...] also have a considerable impact on how a disorder is generally perceived and further developed. The prototype of the multiple in the 20th century is undoubtedly Sybil (1973) [...]."

"American authors used MPD and DID to enhance the inner dividedness of their protagonists and their disconnectedness from themselves and their environment."; "Multiple personality and dissociation can also be used as a metaphor within societal structures."

"In popular culture and thus popular fictional works", "MPD remains the core concept whatever name the disorder may obtain in the future, as it functions also as a strong brand can continues to be recognisable."

"[In real life] a template for MPD/DID was clearly given with fictional works as a kind of imperative or instruction for the patients. In this sense, fiction told them how to behave. how to perform, how to feel. The references to the classic cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and especially Sybil are striking. [...] Thus, this study is an interdisciplinary approach attempting to synchronise psychological dynamics of multiple personality and dissociation as [DID] with presentations of it within fictional adaptations."

1. Personalities or Personality States?: The Definition of MPD/DID in Psychiatric Terms

"variable names for this mythical diversity of the human mind evolved."

"Mood changes, memory loss, cryptic yet characteristic symptoms and more or less covert or overt second lives [are manifest] [...], yet the phenomenon may still remain the same: more than just one personality, or name it identity as hence lessen its complexity – inhabiting and sharing the same body."

"the popular perception of multiple personality in terms of MPD/DID [...] seems to be frozen at a certain point. [...] Quite a number of novels still refer especially to MPD and avoid the change into DID and its continuous journey from an overt to a covert syndrome."

"distinct and distinguishable personalities, personality states, alter egos, alters, ego states within one individual occurs or are expressed – quite a number of terms exist in the universe or multiverse of MPD/DID."

Brenner 2001 — "Once known as Gmelin's Syndrome, exchanged personality, multiplex personality, double existences, dual consciousness, dual personality, double personality, plural personality, dissociated personality, alternating personality, multiple personality, split personality, multiple personality disorder, and, most recently, dissociative identity disorder (Ellenberger 1970; Greaves 1993) [...]."

Prince 1906 — "cases of this kind are commonly known as 'double' or 'multiple personality' [...] but a more correct term is disintegrated personality, for each secondary personality is part only of a normal whole self."

"Even though Morton Prince already includes the hypothesis that multiple personality refers in fact to a concept of internal fragmentation instead of plurality of several personalities inside one body, he insisted on representing a person or personality on his/her own [...] Because here is the core of the disorder, its heart, the stress on entities and persons."

"the American People's Encyclopedia of the year 1969 presents the following entry on [MPD]: "a condition in which the main stream of thought is divided so that two or more personalities exist within the same individual" (Humphrey at al. 1969)." -> spread of misleading definition.

"Ellenberger distinguishes [...] real multiple personalities as "[...] each personality has the feeling of its own individuality at the exclusion of other or others" (1970)."

"The switch from a personality oriented [diagnostic] scheme to the definition of a disorder or personality states or identities within one person is obvious and intended. [DSM-IV states DID] is now understood "as a disorder characterized by identity fragmentation rather than a proliferation of separate personalities".

DSM-I — "psychoneurotic disorders" [...] "dissociative reaction" [...] "gross personality disorganisation" that may deflect into "various symptomatic expressions, such as depersonalisation, dissociated personality, stupor, fugue, amnesia, dream state, somnambulism, etc." (32). — "No further explanations exist."

DSM-II — "Hysterical neurosis, dissociative type". [...] "in the dissociative type, alterations may occur in the patient's state of consciousness or in his identity, to produce such symptoms as amnesia, somnambulism, fugue, and multiple personality." — "[It] does not contain any further explanations but explicitly mentions the term of multiple personality."

DSM-III — "Dissociative disorders" [...] "Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)" [...] "A. The existence within the individual of two or more distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at a particular time." [...] "C. Each individual personality is complex and integrated with its own unique behaviour pattern and social relationship."

DSM-IV-TR — "Dissociative disorders" [...] "Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder" [...] "A. The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self)." [...] "C. Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness."

"This definition adds particularly the criterion of amnesia, loss of memory."

DSM-IV Sourcebook — "It was proposed that the term 'multiple personality disorder' be changed to 'dissociative identity disorder' to stress that the nature of the condition is the lack of personal integration rather than the objective existence of various personalities within a single individual."

"Knowing how to test or prove an assertion that an individual has more than one personality [...] is impossible in the absence of general agreement about what any of these terms mean." (Piper 1997)

"Merckelbach, Devilly, and Rassin accentuate that the alters are suggested as a possible result of "attributional illusions" and they refer the tendency of some patients to "attribute causality to inside agents" which eventually suggests that there is a possibility or interpreting alters as "metaphors rather than real entities". (2002)"

"There is no singular agreement on how [DID] and the variety of personalities or identities should be interpreted. Yet rather than emphasizing real persons inside, there is consistency in stressing the importance of altered states of consciousness due to dissociation. Hence, Dell proposes other names for the disorder such as "dissociative self-state disorder" [also mentioning 'disaggregate self-state disorder', 'major dissociative disorder', 'chronic complex dissociative disorder', 'complex posttraumatic and dissociative disorder']. [...] patients with such a disorder are now not expected to act as if possessed by several persons."

DSM-V — "Dissociative Identity Disorder" [...] "A. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession. [...]" [...] "D. The disturbance is not a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice [...]."

"This states that it is "not part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice", but would the latter not refer to mainstream American multiple culture [...]?"; "why is there no self-reflection in terms of an embedment in generally available and consumed mainstream narratives?"

"There is no reference to popular culture or mainstream culture as part of a global understanding of a commonly shared [...] popularised form of mental disorders such as MPD/DID [...]. The term "culture" here applied seems to be the Other, the exotic, the uncommon ground seen from a Western white middle class normativity [...]."; "Why is the American culture (of multiples) excluded here [...]?" -> overdiagnosis of and concept stray for MPD/DID and rise of imitative DID presentations because plural subcultures are not yet recognised as valid vehicles for expression? thus dissociative diagnoses are lumped in / sought after / used as the vehicle of self-understanding for individuals.

"Innumerous diagnosed Americans, as they present themselves in chat rooms, online forums and internet groups, understand themselves within a frame of healthy copying [sic] or at least refer to the established culture practice of the cultural "idioms of distress" (Nichter) of MPD or DID within the American society. DID still is not totally seen like this plural self-conception or multiple agency in the DSM-V, here it still remains a mental disorder."

"in order to understand the translation of a mental diagnosis such as [MPD] into the context of fictional texts and films, it is important to distinguish consequently two concepts of multiple personality. The first concept evolves the idea of distinct personalities within one body with different levels of memory and consciousness, hence a number of persons within one person. [...] This concept seems to be more intelligible; it is easier to translate. The second concept develops from the basis of the first and refers to different yet distinct personality or identity states, which means that a variety of states of consciousness can be defined. Here, not distinct personalities or persons are mentioned but different levels of consciousness are obvious within one person. The fragmentation of a mind is emphasised."

2. The Split of Personality: The Diagnosis of MPD/DID versus Schizophrenia

"The culture of multiple personality is not that of schizophrenia especially in the United States. It may be confused with schizophrenia and understood as split personality. Yet the reference to such a split of personality in terms of being multiple still refers to distinguishable persons or personalities or personality states within one body." [my note: this book avoids the term 'split personality' for multiplicity and typically maintains it with schizophrenia for clarity and consistency; schizophrenia is dubbed as such due to its etymology and functional 'splitting' of "psychic functions" (Bleuler 1950). I personally do use the term 'split personality' for certain trope variants of multiplicity.]

3. Of Demons and Dissociation: The Origins and Early Science of the Other Side

"The observation of alternating states of consciousness and behavioural patterns were firstly explained by the religious concept of demon possession: devilish forces inhabited a human body and soul, speaking in dubious tongues, provoking somatic change. In the aftermath of more scholarly oriented notions of the Enlightenment, a more scientific and physically oriented view was established."

3.1 — Demons and Possession

"This personality admits its demonic nature, refers to itself in first person and uses the third person for the possessed, maintains specific knowledge unknown to the possessed and displays a complete change of character and morals (Wilson 1976 in Ross 1997)."

"Ellenberger classified two different forms of possessions: the "lucid" and the "somnambulistic possession". The lucid possession points at a state "in which the subject feels within himself the two souls striving against each other", and the somnambulistic possession again is a state "in which the subject loses consciousness of his own self while a mysterious intruder seems to take possession of the body and acts and speaks with an individuality of which the subject knows nothing when he returns to awareness". Both the lucid and the somnambulistic forms of possession can be found in the two main forms of multiple personality, Ellenberger calls "simultaneous" and "successive multiple personality". [...] The parallels are clearly made here."

3.3 — Dipsychism and Polypsychism

"According to [the 19th century concept of a "double-ego"] the duality of mind is composed of two egos, which consist of 'upper consciousness' and 'under consciousness' [...]. In addition, the strength of the under consciousness is not to be underestimated as it seeks predominance and represents in itself the very core of dual personality. Such theory of the divided self that involved concerns about the "disintegration of the ego" was announced by Henry Maudsley in the year 1883, just three year prior to [Jekyll and Hyde's publication]. Maudsley's concept emphasises the dual character of the human mind with a hidden other side. The ego or self "holds together" all functions of the body, but "manifold varieties of mental derangement" could result in a feeling of "two alternating and opposite phases"."

"With Freud's triad of self as ego-superego-id, which replaced the conscious-unconcious theory, and Jung's opinion of the human psyche as being essentially multiple, another level [of the divided mind] was reached."

Hall 1991 — "Jungian theory stresses the dissociative nature of the personality. No complex entirely controls the personality, nor should it, although the ego complex is usually dominant during waking life. [...] Identification with another complex (not-ego, not-I) is a dissociative state that may be severe (such as in [MPD] or psychotic state) or transient and temporary (such as in mood)."

3.5 — Pierre Janet: The Concept of Dissociation

"According to Janet, traumatic memories are indeed "encoded in the body" (Howell 2005) thus creating severe physical symptoms which are now also labelled ‘positive somatoform dissociative symptoms’ (cf. Nijenhuis 1999; Nijenhuis and Van der Hart 1999; Howell 2005). Moreover, these are acknowledged to be connected with the current theory on [PTSD]."

"Janet’s approach to his concept of dissociation was a phenomenological one. He interpreted the physical and psychological symptoms of his patients in terms of hysteria, that is "in terms of functional losses, such as anaesthesia and amnesia, and in terms of acute, transient, distressing, and often intrusive symptoms, such as flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or sudden bodily experiences" (Howell 2005). Accordingly, he also established the connectedness of the mind and body as he observed somatic symptoms after psychological traumata, and although his patients were not victims of any organic disease, they could produce corresponding symptoms without conscious awareness. Furthermore, Janet had the impression that a subconscious part of the human psyche could lead to a performance of these bodily symptoms and that such a subconscious part could be examined as a second consciousness. As Reiber notes, this second consciousness was therefore the result of a dissociated part of the human traumatised mind and could act just like a second personality."

"Freud’s concept [of repression] is understood as a theory of unconscious processes, which are active and motivated. Janet’s concept of dissociation, however, is now understood as an automatic reflex upon a traumatic event and therefore psychologically passive."

Janet 1906 — "a dissociation occurs "not only of an idea, not only of a feeling, but of one mental state of activity"

3.6 — William James: "Mutations of the Self"

"William James – the "preeminent figure in late 19th and early 20th century" (Spanos 1996) – devoted the famous chapter X in his Principles of Psychology (1890) to "The Consciousness of Self". In chapter VIII "The Relations of Minds to Other Things", he had already referred to the splitting of consciousness in a person – "It must be admitted, therefore, that in certain persons, at least, the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which coexist but mutually ignore each other, and share the objects of knowledge between them [...]". In Dissociative Identity Disorder (1997), Ross considered James’ concept of the self as "a plurality of selves in the normal individual" including the material, social, spiritual selves and the pure ego, [...] various psychological derangements [...] could result in severe dissociation or even DID."

"The consciousness of the self, however, is built on a stream of thought, "each part of which as ‘I’ can 1) remember those which went before, and know the things they knew; and 2) emphasise and care paramountly for certain ones among them as ‘me’, and appropriate to these the rest" [...]. If this system of a healthy self, based on identity and constant memory, is disturbed, another phenomenon may occur."

"Whether arguing in favour of religious revelation or psychological terms, James stresses the dividedness or plurality of the self. Referring to various examples from Augustine to contemporary cases of alternating personality, James is one of the most important thinkers of the psyche seen as a multitude of selves united or not."

4. Shock and Trauma: Renaissance of the Dissociation Concept

4.1 — Memory and Identity: The Illusion of the Unitary Self

Spiegel 2011 — "Dissociation is a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal, subjective integration of one or more aspects of psychological functioning, including – but not limited to – memory, identity, consciousness, perception, and motor control. In essence, aspects of psychobiological functioning that should be associated, coordinated, and/or linked are not."

Nemiah 1998 — "Contrary to the traditional view that human consciousness is a single, unbroken, and unitary continuity, Janet’s clinical observations provided convincing evidence that there may coexist within one and the same individuals two or more separate, dissociated streams of consciousness, each existing in isolation from the others and each with a wide spectrum of mental contents such as memories, sensations, volitions, and affects. The magnitude and intricacy of those dissociated complexes may vary."

"The unity of the self is an illusion, and yet the self – pathological and healthy – is actually distinguished by its plurality (cf. Howell 2005). This expression, however, may give rise to some inconsistencies, and it may be helpful here to speak of a unity of memory and a plurality of self-perception or a self with an inner plurality and multi-dimensionality."

4.2 — Trauma

"The trauma as a cause of severe dissociation [...] provoked different psychotherapeutical approaches (Hacking 1995). Whereas Freud was convinced that the reexperiencing [sic] of the traumatic event was the precondition for psychic healing, Pierre Janet followed the opposite direction: via suggestion and hypnosis. Janet was even convinced that a patient could be taught to forget the individual trauma so that a psychological reaction like dissociation would not make any sense at all, and in this way, the patient could be healed."

"David Spiegel emphasizes the fragmentation of the traumatised person and at the same time urges therapists to recognise this and not treat the inner fragmentation as separate personalities (2006)."

"[In fictional works] dissociation may not represent a copying [sic] strategy via avoidance, but rather a personal opportunity and change, a creative way of reinventing the self." -> Don’t agree with this assertion and muddled use of terminologies (dissociation ≠ avoidance).

4.3 — Contemporary Theories of Dissociation

"Although [DID] signifies the most severe form of dissociation, it may symbolise the pathogenic form of the natural dissociative structure of the human psyche (Howell 2005)."

"Along a model of continuum, an increasing lack of integrity constitutes a dissociated state of mind. A partly observed self or self state is still able to obtain a fundamental "capacity for self-observation" with diminished memory, claim Gokynkina and Ryle (1999). Such a limited perception may lead to amnesia and a restricted range of reciprocal role patterns. On a continuum, different degrees from healthy identity perceptions more difficult behavioural patterns such as in [BPD] may occur and eventually lead to a [DID]."

5. The Other Side(s): Famous Cases of Double Consciousness and Multiple Personality

"a couple of classic cases shaped the popular knowledge and awareness of the phenomenon."

"All cases [...] are based on what the authors could witness with their patients. Putnam therefore sums up the typical statements on the individual cases. Firstly, the patient undergoes a sudden dramatic transformation and presents a side that contradicts a previous behaviour. [...] Secondly, the rapid transformation "appeared related to environmental stimuli" such as "syncopal episodes or brief periods of sleep", which Putnam calls "swoon switches". Thirdly, there can be amnesiac barriers that separate the personalities."

"All cases were not merely experienced in isolation but were presented to the public. Thus, they all, [...] "deliberately aimed at a general audience" (Leys "The Real Miss Beauchamp")."

5.3 — The Old State and the New State: The Case of Mary Reynolds (1816)

"When the case was briefly mentioned [...] it was not the duality of person which hit public nerve but the mysterious term of double consciousness. The case finally became "the diagnostic category, in English, for most of the nineteenth century" (Hacking 1997)."

5.4 — The Two Identities of A.B.: The Case of Ansel Bourne (1890)

James, Principles of Psychology — "He said his name was Ansel Bourne, that he was entirely ignorant of Norristown, that he knew nothing of shop-keeping, and that the last thing he remembered – it seemed only yesterday – was drawing the money from the bank, etc., in Providence. [...] He could not believe two months had elapsed."

"Eventually James concludes that [...] within Bourne, there are two distinct personalities within one body as he could observe a recognisable change in manners during hypnosis [...]. There seemed to be no possibility of running "the two personalities into one, and make the memories continuous" so that James therefore concluded that "Mr. Bourne’s skull today still covers two distinct personal selves"."

5.5 — A Case of Personality Clusters: Miss Beauchamp (1906)

"These personalities had distinct behavioural patterns and were also easy to differentiate. According to the major American cases of multiple personality [...] such distinct personalities were a phenomenon that is always emphasised. The observation, however, was mostly made by male doctors describing female patients."

Hawthorn 1938 — "It is interesting to note that very often when a male investigator is describing the difference between two personalities of a woman, one will be described as clearly prettier [...]" -> the fetish of multiple personality according to male gaze

5.6 — The Three Selves of Eve: Thigpen and Cleckley (1957)

"The case of Eve was seen as a classic example of "personal problems experienced by many women" whose difficulties were caused "by the operation of social taboos and conventions" (Hawthorn 1983) thus creating a situation in which a feeling of conflict between rival demands of self-realisation and social pressure is born."

"The case "became a media event. Given the quasi-novelistic form in which it was presented, evidently it was meant to" (Kenny 1986). [...] Kenny sees it as a "marvel of nature" and yet the therapists Thigpen and Cleckley later condemned the "profligacy and propagandising" of multiple personalities. However, they did not hesitate to transform a medical case into a media sensation by filming Eve and publishing their psychiatric account or study in the form of a novel, later even allowing the latter to be used for a movie adaptations [sic]."

"Relatively speaking, this case was still based on the duality of a good and an evil side."

"To become the prototype for the later multiple personality, Hacking maintains, the case of Eve also lacked the "framework" of child abuse. Because of this lack of [CSA] as a cause "no one who writes in movement literature has a good word to say for the book, and many critics voice hard judgement of her psychiatrists", he notes. The Three Faces of Eve had been written "in an age of innocence" and therefore it did "nothing to make multiplicity intelligible". The Three Faces of Eve therefore "gave a misleading picture of MPD and ironally may have helped to obscure the clinical features of the disorder"."

Hacking 1995 — "[Chris Sizemore, the real Eve] did not so much join the [plural] movement as serve as a perfect exemplar of the new vision of multiplicity that emerged in the 1970s – including misdiagnosis or maltreatment by an earlier generation of doctors."

5.7 — Fact or Fiction? The Sixteen Persons of Sybil (1973)

Borch-Jacobsen 1997 — "[MPD] [...] was born in 1973 with the publication of Flora Rheta Schrieber’s book Sybil"

Sybil — ""I live there," came the correction. "Jist everybody knows I live in Willow Corners." / Jist. Sybil didn’t talk that way. The doctor was overtaken by an uncanny, eerie feeling."

Sybil — "She seemed smaller, shrunken."

"It is notable that this changed appearance is the similarity between the text and the descriptions of Mr. Hyde [...]."

Sybil — "The way we’re talking to each other, the doctor will think we’re one person talking to herself."

Sybil — "I’m not a patient. I’m patients." [...] "You’re twisting the truth. The others are part of you. We all have different parts of our personalities. The abnormality lies not in the division, but in the dissociation, the amnesia, and the terrible traumas that gave rise to the others."

Sybil — "the integration would result in death for them."

Sybil — "Since Vicky had all the memories and possessed more of the original Sybil than waking Sybil, the doctor had thought it might be a good idea to do away with all the selves, including waking Sybil [...], and allow Vicky to be the one self."

"Spiegel states that Sybil was "a wonderful hysterical patient with role confusion" but not a multiple personality. He saw her personalities "rather as game playing" fostered by Wilbur as personalities one their own when they were in fact certain "perspectives, that she then called by name." -> what is a ‘real’ multiple personality, though?

"The narration shifts from Sybil’s inner world, told from a third person perspective, to Wilbur as central character struggling for a therapy, sometimes a brutal one. Whether we observe Miss Beauchamp, Eve, or Sybil, the patient is literally never in control of her core identity or has true agency."

6. Voices of Doubt: The Validity of Multiple Personality

"As post-modern individuals we comprehend that contradictory emotions, various feelings or impulses may flow inside us. [...] The result [...] may be a conception of a fragmented self in a postmodern incoherent world. "My body is not one but many", says Joyce Carol Oates (1996). Walt Whitman [...] "Do I contradict myself / Very well then … I contradict myself; / I am large … I contain multitudes" (2001)."

"While one side stresses the post-traumatic model, the other side stresses the sociological model. The first side understands dissociation as mechanism of the psyche whereas the other side believes that societal structures may help proliferate wrong ideas about multiple personality." -> both of these are true facts. They are both correct.

"Carter contradicts the theory of multiplicity as insanity, for "it is not in itself abnormal. Rather, it is a manifestation of the extraordinary flexibility of the human psyche and is often perfectly healthy or even beneficial". Hence, separate existences may even help us to "cope with the complexity of modern life and exploit the opportunities it offers" (2008)."

"[Spanos] focuses on multiple personality [...] as one amongst a number of psychological disorders or psychiatric syndromes that had been defined, accepted, and popularised, and that literally changed the conception of the human mind and its coping strategies or surrender to distress (1996)."

"The question is when a feeling of inner plurality may count as a mental disorder."

"Merksey referred to MPD as a ‘doxogenic disease’ and also considered it as a result of mental conceptions of the self: the "patients’ own mental conceptions (from doxa, meaning opinion, and genes, to produce)" consequently characterised the symptoms of the disease." -> why always the framework of disease?

"The contradictions of various definitions by psychiatrists made it nearly impossible for patients to determine the diagnosis as incorrect."

"For Piper [...] [the shift from MPD to DID; the shift from personalities/persons to personality states/identities] is merely cosmetic (1997) as the results remain the same. The public awareness of multiple personality has not completely followed these subtleties."

"The concepts of dissociative identity signs are exported from the North American countries around the world [...] "[...] cinema has influenced the production of dissociative signs" (Piper and Merskey 2004)."

"a posttraumatic model itself is insufficient and that there are also iatrogenic factors, which play an important role in the etiology of DID (Lilienfield et al. 1999)."

Acocella 1999 — "MPD is a field of angry people making absolute judgements. [...] According to MPD believers, the disorder exists, and not to diagnose it is negligence, even malpractice. According to MPD skeptics, the disorder is overwhelmingly iatrogenic [...]."

"The prototypical multiple follows simple facts. Since the second half of the 20th century, the average modern MPD/DID patient has been female and behaves as if she is possessed by "two or more distinct identities" (Spanos 1996). When referred to by name, the MPD patient displays different interpersonal styles [...]. A history of severe [CSA] or even rituals in a satanical environment and [SRA] are mentioned."

"the multiple personality became an expression of the powerless, as "looking at literary and social history suggests that for over a century, multiplicity has offered women a way to express forbidden aspects of the self" (Showalter 1997) [...]. The secondary identity or personality thus functions as a symbol of te excluded, even the unconscious. It mirrors what is wrong within society."

"The success of the novel Sybil created a new MPD stereotype basing the disorder on severe [CSA] (Showalter 1997; Hacking 1995). According to psychiatrist Frank. W. Putnam, this novel eventually "became a template against which all other patients could be compared and understood" (1989). [...] [Sybil] "became a prototype for what was to count as a multiple" (Hacking 1995)."

"In summary, [...] the features of the syndrome, whether called MPD or DID, are connected to presentations within fictional works which work as role models. Such role models therefore need to be examined closely as they created a culture of multiple personality. [...] The syndrome cannot be understood without a close examination of corresponding fictional representations."

7. Brand Identity and "Culture-embedded Syndrome": Multiple Personality and American Culture

"therapeutical settings have only changed insufficiently, as the notion of persons inhabiting one body is still adopted."

"[Culture-embedded Syndrome] refers to multiple personality and dissociation seen as a cultural phenomenon with distinct references within the fictional genre of dissociated minds, making it thus self-referential and also being an aspect of the popular culture and the collective consciousness. Newer and contemporary texts refer to former adaptations."

"Despite the inclusion of "correctional characters" who represent the controversy of the 1990s, the basic elements still remain." -> correctional characters where? I want to see them (genuinely). What is this referring to? Maybe she means the contemporary texts she analyses (haven't read that far yet).

"It was [Jekyll and Hyde] that actually created the pattern of multiple personalities and dissociative identities as a template the readers can recognize [that can thus be and is often called back to by future works]."

"In such film productions, the symptoms are presented as absolute dissociation [...] the alter personalities acquire the status of fully developed people."

"The audience is aware of a division into distinct parts, which are represented as different people, thus making the disorder recognisable."

"The appealing part could mean that expressing one’s despair by using the available metaphor of MPD/DID could help negotiate such despair as it is now recognisable by others – an acceptable "idiom distress" (cf. Nichter 1981). In popular culture, trauma means inner split; inner split means MPD/DID."

Stobart 1994 — "The brand must be consistent. The brand must be meaningfully differentiated; it must stand apart [...] so that consumers recognise that the brand product has particular characteristics."

"This quote by Stobart concerning the marketing of brands could help to explain why the newer definition of DID has not been as successful or popular as the former definition of MPD, or why shifts within the definition espoused by the professional community are not understood or entirely acknowledged by the public."

"Accordingly, various authors or directors can be seen as suppliers, who refer to the MPD brand in order to present a fictional character and his mental state."

Murphy 1990 — "A brand is therefore a ‘pact’ between the owner and consumer."

"this reference to "a pact" neatly sums up the interplay between existing audience expectations and the representations of the split character." -> see Charland 2004 for bearers of mental health labels as ‘consumers’ too.

"Spanos, Lilienfeld and O’Donohue argue that "mainstream treatment techniques for DID appear to reinforce a patient’s display of multiplicity, reify alters as distinct personalities, and encourage patients to establish contact with presumed latent alters" (2007)."

Lilienfeld and O’Donohue 2007 — According to the sociocognitive model of DID, patients actively seek to understand their psychological disorders and do so in terms of available cultural narratives as well as suggestive therapeutic procedures. [...]."

"As such, [MPD] or dissociative identities may exist "in a cultural force field that is increasingly open to considerations of multiplicity" (Tuckle qtd. In Acocella 1999). [...] The multiplicity of a human mind then may exist within a fragmented popular culture itself."

Spanos 1994 — "[the] notion of multiple personality has become commonplace in North American culture, and it is now a legitimate way for people to understand and express their failures and frustration"

Spanos 1994 — "the sociocognitive perspective suggests that patients learn to construe themselves as possessing multiple selves, learn to present themselves in terms of this construct, and learn to reorganise and elaborate on their personal biography so as to make it congruent with their understanding of what is means to be a multiple. These patients are conceptionalised as actively involved in using available information to create a social impression that is congruent with their perception of situated demands, with the self-understandings they have learned to adopt, and with the interpersonal goals they are attempting to achieve." -> modern manifestations in ‘researching DID’ culture, carrds, online plural templates such as alter bio templates, shared role labels, pluralkit, etc.

8. Creating a Public Consciousness: The Role of the Mass Media

"Because the audience may not commonly be able to reproduce the exact terms of scientific studies or explicit details, they may not have access to detailed knowledge concerning developments, changes and current definitions of the disorder. Or, if such an access is given in the times of the Internet, some changes may not be noticed in detail." -> or totally misconstrued. I hate the misinformation that MPD was the ‘alters are not full people’ one.

"generally the public and the representations of the disorder in fiction are still rooted in older conceptions of MPD."

"If the journalist had complied with the last entry ("give the disorder the correct name") the headline would have probably failed to serve its intended purpose, which was to identify an easily understood mental disturbance based on a multiplicity of personality."

"[In autobiographical texts] the reader knows in advance that a mental disorder is being presented. Thus, one can concentrate on the representation of multiple personality from the "inside". The narratives that are thus clear on the phenomenon as MPD seem to offer a handy DIY tutorial and serve(d) as templates when presenting the core identity [...] of the proto/stereotypical case." -> also applies to public figures such as modern day DIDtubers.

Onwards…

Chapter 9 analyses four autobiographical multiple/MPD/DID texts and speaks on this niche in more detail.

Chapters 10 to 13 analyse specific generations of fictional multiple/MPD/DID texts.

Chapters 14 to 21 analyse specific contemporary texts that play with multiplicity/MPD/DID.

I will not be further transcribing this book lest my fingers fall off. If these chapters sound interesting to you or you want to read the previous chapters in their fullest detail, please support the original release!

Read Further:

"The inner fragmentation of fictional characters and their disintegration [...]; Jeremy Hawthorn's analysis in Multiple Personality and the Disintegration of Literary Character (1983)"

"Multiple personality [...] as a modern form of existence [...] James M. Glass in Shattered Selves: Multiple Personality in a Postmodern World (1993). [It also] considers MPD not an entirely valid metaphor for postmodern existence but also a severe posttraumatic disorder causing distress and despair."

"Susan Sontang stressed in her book Illness and Metaphor (1978), that disorders resemble [...] "the night-side of life" [...].

"August Piper considered a general definition [for multiple personality and dissociation] nonexistent; Hoax and Reality (1997)" -> allegedly criticises culture while acknowledging existence of disorder

"Siri Hustvedt presents in her novel Sorrows of an American (2008) another variation of the second concept. An artist explores DID referring to a popular and controversial psychiatric diagnosis and thus attempts to criticise it."

"Henri Ellenberger [...] The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970), a source mainly used by therapists who helped to foster the diagnosis of MPD in the USA [...]."

"Joan Acocella compares Freud and Janet in her critical approach toward the MPD mystery [...] (1999)."

"Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery (1992), where she coined the term of ‘complex post-traumatic stress disorder’ or CPTSD [...]."

"The artificial nature of Sybil’s dissociation [...] is in the focus of Robert Reiber’s book The Bifurcation of the Self (2006). Reiber once received tape recordings of Wilbur’s psychoanalytical sessions [...]."

"Science writer Rita Carter [...] Multiplicity (2008) [...] we all may experience the "evidence for human plurality" as "we act out a part, take on roles, live up to expectations and reinvent ourselves"."

[moleyreads]

this book has definitely cemented my opinion that markedly dissociated self states and presenting as / identifying with multiple identities / sub-identities are two separate phenomena (that obviously can coexist) and that merging them is unproductive and misleading. the former is an unconscious cognitive process that concerns ability and functioning and the latter concerns sense making and available cultural influences. and i feel like nothing has confused the study of posttraumatic dissociative self states more than the constant search for 'intrinsically' 'multiple in one body' human beings within it. there is a fetish for overt multiple personality and a subsequent incentive to legitimise it as something objective and intrinsic and it has seriously negatively impacted on how persons with DID are understood and treated.

practically all studies debunking DID as solely traumagenic bring up the cultural factors necessary to identifying as a modern multiple personality. practically all studies debunking DID as sociocognitive / iatrogenic bring up that the existence of dissociative self states cannot be replicated without developmental traumas. i just can't help but feel like both parties are arguing about entirely separate things that have been wrongly conflated into one clinical entity.

[moleyreads]

Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction Heike Schwarz, 2014 key notes, chapters 0-8. google doc version here.

this book gives really excellent insight into the history of dissociation, multiple personality and MPD/DID, and in particular studies the interactions between fictional depiction and clinical / social practice.

my poor fingers have finally finished transcribing all the sections from this book that i underlined for use in my dissertation.

feel free to have a read as well.

0. Introduction

"Despite the renaming of the disorder [...] the general notion of the disorder still stuck to the exaggerated and more observable form of MPD."

"the mysterious inner fragmentation into separate identities has been exceedingly used in fictional works such as novels or films with a hyperbolical performativity [...]. Although the [APA] changed the name of MPD to DID in order to stress the inner fragmentation rather than emphasize the proliferation of innumerous distinct entities, the disorder continues to be perceived, both in popular culture and in fictional works, as the existence of two or more persons within one body."

"This study [book] develops the theory of MPD and DID as a "culture-embedded syndrome". Not only psychiatric cases alone contribute to pop psychology. But it seems fairly clear that fictional characters [...] also have a considerable impact on how a disorder is generally perceived and further developed. The prototype of the multiple in the 20th century is undoubtedly Sybil (1973) [...]."

"American authors used MPD and DID to enhance the inner dividedness of their protagonists and their disconnectedness from themselves and their environment."; "Multiple personality and dissociation can also be used as a metaphor within societal structures."

"In popular culture and thus popular fictional works", "MPD remains the core concept whatever name the disorder may obtain in the future, as it functions also as a strong brand can continues to be recognisable."

"[In real life] a template for MPD/DID was clearly given with fictional works as a kind of imperative or instruction for the patients. In this sense, fiction told them how to behave. how to perform, how to feel. The references to the classic cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and especially Sybil are striking. [...] Thus, this study is an interdisciplinary approach attempting to synchronise psychological dynamics of multiple personality and dissociation as [DID] with presentations of it within fictional adaptations."

1. Personalities or Personality States?: The Definition of MPD/DID in Psychiatric Terms

"variable names for this mythical diversity of the human mind evolved."

"Mood changes, memory loss, cryptic yet characteristic symptoms and more or less covert or overt second lives [are manifest] [...], yet the phenomenon may still remain the same: more than just one personality, or name it identity as hence lessen its complexity – inhabiting and sharing the same body."

"the popular perception of multiple personality in terms of MPD/DID [...] seems to be frozen at a certain point. [...] Quite a number of novels still refer especially to MPD and avoid the change into DID and its continuous journey from an overt to a covert syndrome."

"distinct and distinguishable personalities, personality states, alter egos, alters, ego states within one individual occurs or are expressed – quite a number of terms exist in the universe or multiverse of MPD/DID."

Brenner 2001 — "Once known as Gmelin's Syndrome, exchanged personality, multiplex personality, double existences, dual consciousness, dual personality, double personality, plural personality, dissociated personality, alternating personality, multiple personality, split personality, multiple personality disorder, and, most recently, dissociative identity disorder (Ellenberger 1970; Greaves 1993) [...]."

Prince 1906 — "cases of this kind are commonly known as 'double' or 'multiple personality' [...] but a more correct term is disintegrated personality, for each secondary personality is part only of a normal whole self."

"Even though Morton Prince already includes the hypothesis that multiple personality refers in fact to a concept of internal fragmentation instead of plurality of several personalities inside one body, he insisted on representing a person or personality on his/her own [...] Because here is the core of the disorder, its heart, the stress on entities and persons."

"the American People's Encyclopedia of the year 1969 presents the following entry on [MPD]: "a condition in which the main stream of thought is divided so that two or more personalities exist within the same individual" (Humphrey at al. 1969)." -> spread of misleading definition.

"Ellenberger distinguishes [...] real multiple personalities as "[...] each personality has the feeling of its own individuality at the exclusion of other or others" (1970)."

"The switch from a personality oriented [diagnostic] scheme to the definition of a disorder or personality states or identities within one person is obvious and intended. [DSM-IV states DID] is now understood "as a disorder characterized by identity fragmentation rather than a proliferation of separate personalities".

DSM-I — "psychoneurotic disorders" [...] "dissociative reaction" [...] "gross personality disorganisation" that may deflect into "various symptomatic expressions, such as depersonalisation, dissociated personality, stupor, fugue, amnesia, dream state, somnambulism, etc." (32). — "No further explanations exist."

DSM-II — "Hysterical neurosis, dissociative type". [...] "in the dissociative type, alterations may occur in the patient's state of consciousness or in his identity, to produce such symptoms as amnesia, somnambulism, fugue, and multiple personality." — "[It] does not contain any further explanations but explicitly mentions the term of multiple personality."

DSM-III — "Dissociative disorders" [...] "Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)" [...] "A. The existence within the individual of two or more distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at a particular time." [...] "C. Each individual personality is complex and integrated with its own unique behaviour pattern and social relationship."

DSM-IV-TR — "Dissociative disorders" [...] "Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder" [...] "A. The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self)." [...] "C. Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness."

"This definition adds particularly the criterion of amnesia, loss of memory."

DSM-IV Sourcebook — "It was proposed that the term 'multiple personality disorder' be changed to 'dissociative identity disorder' to stress that the nature of the condition is the lack of personal integration rather than the objective existence of various personalities within a single individual."

"Knowing how to test or prove an assertion that an individual has more than one personality [...] is impossible in the absence of general agreement about what any of these terms mean." (Piper 1997)

"Merckelbach, Devilly, and Rassin accentuate that the alters are suggested as a possible result of "attributional illusions" and they refer the tendency of some patients to "attribute causality to inside agents" which eventually suggests that there is a possibility or interpreting alters as "metaphors rather than real entities". (2002)"

"There is no singular agreement on how [DID] and the variety of personalities or identities should be interpreted. Yet rather than emphasizing real persons inside, there is consistency in stressing the importance of altered states of consciousness due to dissociation. Hence, Dell proposes other names for the disorder such as "dissociative self-state disorder" [also mentioning 'disaggregate self-state disorder', 'major dissociative disorder', 'chronic complex dissociative disorder', 'complex posttraumatic and dissociative disorder']. [...] patients with such a disorder are now not expected to act as if possessed by several persons."

DSM-V — "Dissociative Identity Disorder" [...] "A. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession. [...]" [...] "D. The disturbance is not a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice [...]."

"This states that it is "not part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice", but would the latter not refer to mainstream American multiple culture [...]?"; "why is there no self-reflection in terms of an embedment in generally available and consumed mainstream narratives?"

"There is no reference to popular culture or mainstream culture as part of a global understanding of a commonly shared [...] popularised form of mental disorders such as MPD/DID [...]. The term "culture" here applied seems to be the Other, the exotic, the uncommon ground seen from a Western white middle class normativity [...]."; "Why is the American culture (of multiples) excluded here [...]?" -> overdiagnosis of and concept stray for MPD/DID and rise of imitative DID presentations because plural subcultures are not yet recognised as valid vehicles for expression? thus dissociative diagnoses are lumped in / sought after / used as the vehicle of self-understanding for individuals.

"Innumerous diagnosed Americans, as they present themselves in chat rooms, online forums and internet groups, understand themselves within a frame of healthy copying [sic] or at least refer to the established culture practice of the cultural "idioms of distress" (Nichter) of MPD or DID within the American society. DID still is not totally seen like this plural self-conception or multiple agency in the DSM-V, here it still remains a mental disorder."

"in order to understand the translation of a mental diagnosis such as [MPD] into the context of fictional texts and films, it is important to distinguish consequently two concepts of multiple personality. The first concept evolves the idea of distinct personalities within one body with different levels of memory and consciousness, hence a number of persons within one person. [...] This concept seems to be more intelligible; it is easier to translate. The second concept develops from the basis of the first and refers to different yet distinct personality or identity states, which means that a variety of states of consciousness can be defined. Here, not distinct personalities or persons are mentioned but different levels of consciousness are obvious within one person. The fragmentation of a mind is emphasised."

2. The Split of Personality: The Diagnosis of MPD/DID versus Schizophrenia

"The culture of multiple personality is not that of schizophrenia especially in the United States. It may be confused with schizophrenia and understood as split personality. Yet the reference to such a split of personality in terms of being multiple still refers to distinguishable persons or personalities or personality states within one body." [my note: this book avoids the term 'split personality' for multiplicity and typically maintains it with schizophrenia for clarity and consistency; schizophrenia is dubbed as such due to its etymology and functional 'splitting' of "psychic functions" (Bleuler 1950). I personally do use the term 'split personality' for certain trope variants of multiplicity.]

3. Of Demons and Dissociation: The Origins and Early Science of the Other Side

"The observation of alternating states of consciousness and behavioural patterns were firstly explained by the religious concept of demon possession: devilish forces inhabited a human body and soul, speaking in dubious tongues, provoking somatic change. In the aftermath of more scholarly oriented notions of the Enlightenment, a more scientific and physically oriented view was established."

3.1 — Demons and Possession

"This personality admits its demonic nature, refers to itself in first person and uses the third person for the possessed, maintains specific knowledge unknown to the possessed and displays a complete change of character and morals (Wilson 1976 in Ross 1997)."

"Ellenberger classified two different forms of possessions: the "lucid" and the "somnambulistic possession". The lucid possession points at a state "in which the subject feels within himself the two souls striving against each other", and the somnambulistic possession again is a state "in which the subject loses consciousness of his own self while a mysterious intruder seems to take possession of the body and acts and speaks with an individuality of which the subject knows nothing when he returns to awareness". Both the lucid and the somnambulistic forms of possession can be found in the two main forms of multiple personality, Ellenberger calls "simultaneous" and "successive multiple personality". [...] The parallels are clearly made here."

3.3 — Dipsychism and Polypsychism

"According to [the 19th century concept of a "double-ego"] the duality of mind is composed of two egos, which consist of 'upper consciousness' and 'under consciousness' [...]. In addition, the strength of the under consciousness is not to be underestimated as it seeks predominance and represents in itself the very core of dual personality. Such theory of the divided self that involved concerns about the "disintegration of the ego" was announced by Henry Maudsley in the year 1883, just three year prior to [Jekyll and Hyde's publication]. Maudsley's concept emphasises the dual character of the human mind with a hidden other side. The ego or self "holds together" all functions of the body, but "manifold varieties of mental derangement" could result in a feeling of "two alternating and opposite phases"."

"With Freud's triad of self as ego-superego-id, which replaced the conscious-unconcious theory, and Jung's opinion of the human psyche as being essentially multiple, another level [of the divided mind] was reached."

Hall 1991 — "Jungian theory stresses the dissociative nature of the personality. No complex entirely controls the personality, nor should it, although the ego complex is usually dominant during waking life. [...] Identification with another complex (not-ego, not-I) is a dissociative state that may be severe (such as in [MPD] or psychotic state) or transient and temporary (such as in mood)."

3.5 — Pierre Janet: The Concept of Dissociation

"According to Janet, traumatic memories are indeed "encoded in the body" (Howell 2005) thus creating severe physical symptoms which are now also labelled ‘positive somatoform dissociative symptoms’ (cf. Nijenhuis 1999; Nijenhuis and Van der Hart 1999; Howell 2005). Moreover, these are acknowledged to be connected with the current theory on [PTSD]."

"Janet’s approach to his concept of dissociation was a phenomenological one. He interpreted the physical and psychological symptoms of his patients in terms of hysteria, that is "in terms of functional losses, such as anaesthesia and amnesia, and in terms of acute, transient, distressing, and often intrusive symptoms, such as flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or sudden bodily experiences" (Howell 2005). Accordingly, he also established the connectedness of the mind and body as he observed somatic symptoms after psychological traumata, and although his patients were not victims of any organic disease, they could produce corresponding symptoms without conscious awareness. Furthermore, Janet had the impression that a subconscious part of the human psyche could lead to a performance of these bodily symptoms and that such a subconscious part could be examined as a second consciousness. As Reiber notes, this second consciousness was therefore the result of a dissociated part of the human traumatised mind and could act just like a second personality."

"Freud’s concept [of repression] is understood as a theory of unconscious processes, which are active and motivated. Janet’s concept of dissociation, however, is now understood as an automatic reflex upon a traumatic event and therefore psychologically passive."

Janet 1906 — "a dissociation occurs "not only of an idea, not only of a feeling, but of one mental state of activity"

3.6 — William James: "Mutations of the Self"

"William James – the "preeminent figure in late 19th and early 20th century" (Spanos 1996) – devoted the famous chapter X in his Principles of Psychology (1890) to "The Consciousness of Self". In chapter VIII "The Relations of Minds to Other Things", he had already referred to the splitting of consciousness in a person – "It must be admitted, therefore, that in certain persons, at least, the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which coexist but mutually ignore each other, and share the objects of knowledge between them [...]". In Dissociative Identity Disorder (1997), Ross considered James’ concept of the self as "a plurality of selves in the normal individual" including the material, social, spiritual selves and the pure ego, [...] various psychological derangements [...] could result in severe dissociation or even DID."

"The consciousness of the self, however, is built on a stream of thought, "each part of which as ‘I’ can 1) remember those which went before, and know the things they knew; and 2) emphasise and care paramountly for certain ones among them as ‘me’, and appropriate to these the rest" [...]. If this system of a healthy self, based on identity and constant memory, is disturbed, another phenomenon may occur."

"Whether arguing in favour of religious revelation or psychological terms, James stresses the dividedness or plurality of the self. Referring to various examples from Augustine to contemporary cases of alternating personality, James is one of the most important thinkers of the psyche seen as a multitude of selves united or not."

4. Shock and Trauma: Renaissance of the Dissociation Concept

4.1 — Memory and Identity: The Illusion of the Unitary Self

Spiegel 2011 — "Dissociation is a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal, subjective integration of one or more aspects of psychological functioning, including – but not limited to – memory, identity, consciousness, perception, and motor control. In essence, aspects of psychobiological functioning that should be associated, coordinated, and/or linked are not."

Nemiah 1998 — "Contrary to the traditional view that human consciousness is a single, unbroken, and unitary continuity, Janet’s clinical observations provided convincing evidence that there may coexist within one and the same individuals two or more separate, dissociated streams of consciousness, each existing in isolation from the others and each with a wide spectrum of mental contents such as memories, sensations, volitions, and affects. The magnitude and intricacy of those dissociated complexes may vary."

"The unity of the self is an illusion, and yet the self – pathological and healthy – is actually distinguished by its plurality (cf. Howell 2005). This expression, however, may give rise to some inconsistencies, and it may be helpful here to speak of a unity of memory and a plurality of self-perception or a self with an inner plurality and multi-dimensionality."

4.2 — Trauma

"The trauma as a cause of severe dissociation [...] provoked different psychotherapeutical approaches (Hacking 1995). Whereas Freud was convinced that the reexperiencing [sic] of the traumatic event was the precondition for psychic healing, Pierre Janet followed the opposite direction: via suggestion and hypnosis. Janet was even convinced that a patient could be taught to forget the individual trauma so that a psychological reaction like dissociation would not make any sense at all, and in this way, the patient could be healed."

"David Spiegel emphasizes the fragmentation of the traumatised person and at the same time urges therapists to recognise this and not treat the inner fragmentation as separate personalities (2006)."

"[In fictional works] dissociation may not represent a copying [sic] strategy via avoidance, but rather a personal opportunity and change, a creative way of reinventing the self." -> Don’t agree with this assertion and muddled use of terminologies (dissociation ≠ avoidance).

4.3 — Contemporary Theories of Dissociation

"Although [DID] signifies the most severe form of dissociation, it may symbolise the pathogenic form of the natural dissociative structure of the human psyche (Howell 2005)."

"Along a model of continuum, an increasing lack of integrity constitutes a dissociated state of mind. A partly observed self or self state is still able to obtain a fundamental "capacity for self-observation" with diminished memory, claim Gokynkina and Ryle (1999). Such a limited perception may lead to amnesia and a restricted range of reciprocal role patterns. On a continuum, different degrees from healthy identity perceptions more difficult behavioural patterns such as in [BPD] may occur and eventually lead to a [DID]."

5. The Other Side(s): Famous Cases of Double Consciousness and Multiple Personality

"a couple of classic cases shaped the popular knowledge and awareness of the phenomenon."

"All cases [...] are based on what the authors could witness with their patients. Putnam therefore sums up the typical statements on the individual cases. Firstly, the patient undergoes a sudden dramatic transformation and presents a side that contradicts a previous behaviour. [...] Secondly, the rapid transformation "appeared related to environmental stimuli" such as "syncopal episodes or brief periods of sleep", which Putnam calls "swoon switches". Thirdly, there can be amnesiac barriers that separate the personalities."

"All cases were not merely experienced in isolation but were presented to the public. Thus, they all, [...] "deliberately aimed at a general audience" (Leys "The Real Miss Beauchamp")."

5.3 — The Old State and the New State: The Case of Mary Reynolds (1816)

"When the case was briefly mentioned [...] it was not the duality of person which hit public nerve but the mysterious term of double consciousness. The case finally became "the diagnostic category, in English, for most of the nineteenth century" (Hacking 1997)."

5.4 — The Two Identities of A.B.: The Case of Ansel Bourne (1890)

James, Principles of Psychology — "He said his name was Ansel Bourne, that he was entirely ignorant of Norristown, that he knew nothing of shop-keeping, and that the last thing he remembered – it seemed only yesterday – was drawing the money from the bank, etc., in Providence. [...] He could not believe two months had elapsed."

"Eventually James concludes that [...] within Bourne, there are two distinct personalities within one body as he could observe a recognisable change in manners during hypnosis [...]. There seemed to be no possibility of running "the two personalities into one, and make the memories continuous" so that James therefore concluded that "Mr. Bourne’s skull today still covers two distinct personal selves"."

5.5 — A Case of Personality Clusters: Miss Beauchamp (1906)

"These personalities had distinct behavioural patterns and were also easy to differentiate. According to the major American cases of multiple personality [...] such distinct personalities were a phenomenon that is always emphasised. The observation, however, was mostly made by male doctors describing female patients."

Hawthorn 1938 — "It is interesting to note that very often when a male investigator is describing the difference between two personalities of a woman, one will be described as clearly prettier [...]" -> the fetish of multiple personality according to male gaze

5.6 — The Three Selves of Eve: Thigpen and Cleckley (1957)

"The case of Eve was seen as a classic example of "personal problems experienced by many women" whose difficulties were caused "by the operation of social taboos and conventions" (Hawthorn 1983) thus creating a situation in which a feeling of conflict between rival demands of self-realisation and social pressure is born."

"The case "became a media event. Given the quasi-novelistic form in which it was presented, evidently it was meant to" (Kenny 1986). [...] Kenny sees it as a "marvel of nature" and yet the therapists Thigpen and Cleckley later condemned the "profligacy and propagandising" of multiple personalities. However, they did not hesitate to transform a medical case into a media sensation by filming Eve and publishing their psychiatric account or study in the form of a novel, later even allowing the latter to be used for a movie adaptations [sic]."

"Relatively speaking, this case was still based on the duality of a good and an evil side."

"To become the prototype for the later multiple personality, Hacking maintains, the case of Eve also lacked the "framework" of child abuse. Because of this lack of [CSA] as a cause "no one who writes in movement literature has a good word to say for the book, and many critics voice hard judgement of her psychiatrists", he notes. The Three Faces of Eve had been written "in an age of innocence" and therefore it did "nothing to make multiplicity intelligible". The Three Faces of Eve therefore "gave a misleading picture of MPD and ironally may have helped to obscure the clinical features of the disorder"."

Hacking 1995 — "[Chris Sizemore, the real Eve] did not so much join the [plural] movement as serve as a perfect exemplar of the new vision of multiplicity that emerged in the 1970s – including misdiagnosis or maltreatment by an earlier generation of doctors."

5.7 — Fact or Fiction? The Sixteen Persons of Sybil (1973)

Borch-Jacobsen 1997 — "[MPD] [...] was born in 1973 with the publication of Flora Rheta Schrieber’s book Sybil"

Sybil — ""I live there," came the correction. "Jist everybody knows I live in Willow Corners." / Jist. Sybil didn’t talk that way. The doctor was overtaken by an uncanny, eerie feeling."

Sybil — "She seemed smaller, shrunken."

"It is notable that this changed appearance is the similarity between the text and the descriptions of Mr. Hyde [...]."

Sybil — "The way we’re talking to each other, the doctor will think we’re one person talking to herself."

Sybil — "I’m not a patient. I’m patients." [...] "You’re twisting the truth. The others are part of you. We all have different parts of our personalities. The abnormality lies not in the division, but in the dissociation, the amnesia, and the terrible traumas that gave rise to the others."

Sybil — "the integration would result in death for them."

Sybil — "Since Vicky had all the memories and possessed more of the original Sybil than waking Sybil, the doctor had thought it might be a good idea to do away with all the selves, including waking Sybil [...], and allow Vicky to be the one self."

"Spiegel states that Sybil was "a wonderful hysterical patient with role confusion" but not a multiple personality. He saw her personalities "rather as game playing" fostered by Wilbur as personalities one their own when they were in fact certain "perspectives, that she then called by name." -> what is a ‘real’ multiple personality, though?

"The narration shifts from Sybil’s inner world, told from a third person perspective, to Wilbur as central character struggling for a therapy, sometimes a brutal one. Whether we observe Miss Beauchamp, Eve, or Sybil, the patient is literally never in control of her core identity or has true agency."

6. Voices of Doubt: The Validity of Multiple Personality

"As post-modern individuals we comprehend that contradictory emotions, various feelings or impulses may flow inside us. [...] The result [...] may be a conception of a fragmented self in a postmodern incoherent world. "My body is not one but many", says Joyce Carol Oates (1996). Walt Whitman [...] "Do I contradict myself / Very well then … I contradict myself; / I am large … I contain multitudes" (2001)."

"While one side stresses the post-traumatic model, the other side stresses the sociological model. The first side understands dissociation as mechanism of the psyche whereas the other side believes that societal structures may help proliferate wrong ideas about multiple personality." -> both of these are true facts. They are both correct.

"Carter contradicts the theory of multiplicity as insanity, for "it is not in itself abnormal. Rather, it is a manifestation of the extraordinary flexibility of the human psyche and is often perfectly healthy or even beneficial". Hence, separate existences may even help us to "cope with the complexity of modern life and exploit the opportunities it offers" (2008)."

"[Spanos] focuses on multiple personality [...] as one amongst a number of psychological disorders or psychiatric syndromes that had been defined, accepted, and popularised, and that literally changed the conception of the human mind and its coping strategies or surrender to distress (1996)."

"The question is when a feeling of inner plurality may count as a mental disorder."

"Merksey referred to MPD as a ‘doxogenic disease’ and also considered it as a result of mental conceptions of the self: the "patients’ own mental conceptions (from doxa, meaning opinion, and genes, to produce)" consequently characterised the symptoms of the disease." -> why always the framework of disease?

"The contradictions of various definitions by psychiatrists made it nearly impossible for patients to determine the diagnosis as incorrect."

"For Piper [...] [the shift from MPD to DID; the shift from personalities/persons to personality states/identities] is merely cosmetic (1997) as the results remain the same. The public awareness of multiple personality has not completely followed these subtleties."

"The concepts of dissociative identity signs are exported from the North American countries around the world [...] "[...] cinema has influenced the production of dissociative signs" (Piper and Merskey 2004)."

"a posttraumatic model itself is insufficient and that there are also iatrogenic factors, which play an important role in the etiology of DID (Lilienfield et al. 1999)."

Acocella 1999 — "MPD is a field of angry people making absolute judgements. [...] According to MPD believers, the disorder exists, and not to diagnose it is negligence, even malpractice. According to MPD skeptics, the disorder is overwhelmingly iatrogenic [...]."

"The prototypical multiple follows simple facts. Since the second half of the 20th century, the average modern MPD/DID patient has been female and behaves as if she is possessed by "two or more distinct identities" (Spanos 1996). When referred to by name, the MPD patient displays different interpersonal styles [...]. A history of severe [CSA] or even rituals in a satanical environment and [SRA] are mentioned."

"the multiple personality became an expression of the powerless, as "looking at literary and social history suggests that for over a century, multiplicity has offered women a way to express forbidden aspects of the self" (Showalter 1997) [...]. The secondary identity or personality thus functions as a symbol of te excluded, even the unconscious. It mirrors what is wrong within society."

"The success of the novel Sybil created a new MPD stereotype basing the disorder on severe [CSA] (Showalter 1997; Hacking 1995). According to psychiatrist Frank. W. Putnam, this novel eventually "became a template against which all other patients could be compared and understood" (1989). [...] [Sybil] "became a prototype for what was to count as a multiple" (Hacking 1995)."

"In summary, [...] the features of the syndrome, whether called MPD or DID, are connected to presentations within fictional works which work as role models. Such role models therefore need to be examined closely as they created a culture of multiple personality. [...] The syndrome cannot be understood without a close examination of corresponding fictional representations."

7. Brand Identity and "Culture-embedded Syndrome": Multiple Personality and American Culture

"therapeutical settings have only changed insufficiently, as the notion of persons inhabiting one body is still adopted."

"[Culture-embedded Syndrome] refers to multiple personality and dissociation seen as a cultural phenomenon with distinct references within the fictional genre of dissociated minds, making it thus self-referential and also being an aspect of the popular culture and the collective consciousness. Newer and contemporary texts refer to former adaptations."

"Despite the inclusion of "correctional characters" who represent the controversy of the 1990s, the basic elements still remain." -> correctional characters where? I want to see them (genuinely). What is this referring to? Maybe she means the contemporary texts she analyses (haven't read that far yet).

"It was [Jekyll and Hyde] that actually created the pattern of multiple personalities and dissociative identities as a template the readers can recognize [that can thus be and is often called back to by future works]."

"In such film productions, the symptoms are presented as absolute dissociation [...] the alter personalities acquire the status of fully developed people."

"The audience is aware of a division into distinct parts, which are represented as different people, thus making the disorder recognisable."

"The appealing part could mean that expressing one’s despair by using the available metaphor of MPD/DID could help negotiate such despair as it is now recognisable by others – an acceptable "idiom distress" (cf. Nichter 1981). In popular culture, trauma means inner split; inner split means MPD/DID."

Stobart 1994 — "The brand must be consistent. The brand must be meaningfully differentiated; it must stand apart [...] so that consumers recognise that the brand product has particular characteristics."

"This quote by Stobart concerning the marketing of brands could help to explain why the newer definition of DID has not been as successful or popular as the former definition of MPD, or why shifts within the definition espoused by the professional community are not understood or entirely acknowledged by the public."

"Accordingly, various authors or directors can be seen as suppliers, who refer to the MPD brand in order to present a fictional character and his mental state."

Murphy 1990 — "A brand is therefore a ‘pact’ between the owner and consumer."

"this reference to "a pact" neatly sums up the interplay between existing audience expectations and the representations of the split character." -> see Charland 2004 for bearers of mental health labels as ‘consumers’ too.

"Spanos, Lilienfeld and O’Donohue argue that "mainstream treatment techniques for DID appear to reinforce a patient’s display of multiplicity, reify alters as distinct personalities, and encourage patients to establish contact with presumed latent alters" (2007)."

Lilienfeld and O’Donohue 2007 — According to the sociocognitive model of DID, patients actively seek to understand their psychological disorders and do so in terms of available cultural narratives as well as suggestive therapeutic procedures. [...]."

"As such, [MPD] or dissociative identities may exist "in a cultural force field that is increasingly open to considerations of multiplicity" (Tuckle qtd. In Acocella 1999). [...] The multiplicity of a human mind then may exist within a fragmented popular culture itself."

Spanos 1994 — "[the] notion of multiple personality has become commonplace in North American culture, and it is now a legitimate way for people to understand and express their failures and frustration"

Spanos 1994 — "the sociocognitive perspective suggests that patients learn to construe themselves as possessing multiple selves, learn to present themselves in terms of this construct, and learn to reorganise and elaborate on their personal biography so as to make it congruent with their understanding of what is means to be a multiple. These patients are conceptionalised as actively involved in using available information to create a social impression that is congruent with their perception of situated demands, with the self-understandings they have learned to adopt, and with the interpersonal goals they are attempting to achieve." -> modern manifestations in ‘researching DID’ culture, carrds, online plural templates such as alter bio templates, shared role labels, pluralkit, etc.

8. Creating a Public Consciousness: The Role of the Mass Media

"Because the audience may not commonly be able to reproduce the exact terms of scientific studies or explicit details, they may not have access to detailed knowledge concerning developments, changes and current definitions of the disorder. Or, if such an access is given in the times of the Internet, some changes may not be noticed in detail." -> or totally misconstrued. I hate the misinformation that MPD was the ‘alters are not full people’ one.

"generally the public and the representations of the disorder in fiction are still rooted in older conceptions of MPD."

"If the journalist had complied with the last entry ("give the disorder the correct name") the headline would have probably failed to serve its intended purpose, which was to identify an easily understood mental disturbance based on a multiplicity of personality."

"[In autobiographical texts] the reader knows in advance that a mental disorder is being presented. Thus, one can concentrate on the representation of multiple personality from the "inside". The narratives that are thus clear on the phenomenon as MPD seem to offer a handy DIY tutorial and serve(d) as templates when presenting the core identity [...] of the proto/stereotypical case." -> also applies to public figures such as modern day DIDtubers.

Onwards…

Chapter 9 analyses four autobiographical multiple/MPD/DID texts and speaks on this niche in more detail.

Chapters 10 to 13 analyse specific generations of fictional multiple/MPD/DID texts.

Chapters 14 to 21 analyse specific contemporary texts that play with multiplicity/MPD/DID.

I will not be further transcribing this book lest my fingers fall off. If these chapters sound interesting to you or you want to read the previous chapters in their fullest detail, please support the original release!

Read Further:

"The inner fragmentation of fictional characters and their disintegration [...]; Jeremy Hawthorn's analysis in Multiple Personality and the Disintegration of Literary Character (1983)"

"Multiple personality [...] as a modern form of existence [...] James M. Glass in Shattered Selves: Multiple Personality in a Postmodern World (1993). [It also] considers MPD not an entirely valid metaphor for postmodern existence but also a severe posttraumatic disorder causing distress and despair."

"Susan Sontang stressed in her book Illness and Metaphor (1978), that disorders resemble [...] "the night-side of life" [...].

"August Piper considered a general definition [for multiple personality and dissociation] nonexistent; Hoax and Reality (1997)" -> allegedly criticises culture while acknowledging existence of disorder

"Siri Hustvedt presents in her novel Sorrows of an American (2008) another variation of the second concept. An artist explores DID referring to a popular and controversial psychiatric diagnosis and thus attempts to criticise it."

"Henri Ellenberger [...] The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970), a source mainly used by therapists who helped to foster the diagnosis of MPD in the USA [...]."

"Joan Acocella compares Freud and Janet in her critical approach toward the MPD mystery [...] (1999)."

"Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery (1992), where she coined the term of ‘complex post-traumatic stress disorder’ or CPTSD [...]."

"The artificial nature of Sybil’s dissociation [...] is in the focus of Robert Reiber’s book The Bifurcation of the Self (2006). Reiber once received tape recordings of Wilbur’s psychoanalytical sessions [...]."

"Science writer Rita Carter [...] Multiplicity (2008) [...] we all may experience the "evidence for human plurality" as "we act out a part, take on roles, live up to expectations and reinvent ourselves"."

[moleyreads]

for transparency i'm currently simultaneously working on three essays on DID (my dissertation, my Split essay, and a third on the impact of self-labelling with DID that will be applied to a text for my next assignment) except i can't figure out what text i want to apply the third to. am i stupid for forgetting any good texts wherein identifying with DID is a key factor

[moleyreads]

A Mind of My Own (Sizemore, 1989)

"In [Adam Crabtree's Multiple Man: Explorations in Possession and Multiple Personality], the Canadian author and therapist described intriguing relationships (and important differences) between MPD and possession. In particular, by defining possession as "the invasion of a person by an entity from the outside," [...]

But I had no personal experience with possession. Nor had any MPD patient with whom I had consulted [...] After reading Multiple Man, then, I remained convinced that my years of multiplicity had not been caused by possession in any of its forms. My alters did not perceive one another as invaders (despite the unfortunate title of Strangers in My Body for some editions of one of my books). Their voices were not perceived as alien to one another. Just different. And there was no hint of "demonic" qualities within any of my alters.

Yet they did perceive one another as entities, and this perception may be the strongest link between MPD and possession. In fact, every MPD patient with whom I have spoken in depth maintains the same belief Each affirms—though not always in the presence of clinicians—that his or her alters are real entities, separate from one another, yet not alien to one another."

the final section of "Eve's" final book writes a lot on various manifestations of 'multiple' culture and how she makes sense of their distinctions

[moleyreads]

i wonder how much you can attribute misrepresentation of 'fictive' alters with the conflation of plural cultures and DID online