Multiple Personalities

Multiple personalities - several consciousnesses in one body - is one of the most fascinating disorders there is. Furthermore, this disorder has societal complications that are almost impossible to resolve. For example, what do you do when one personality commits a murder that the other personality(ies) neither wanted nor "participated" in? What happens when one of the personalities of a multiple personality spouse commits adultery?

These dilemmas have no satisfactory solution. More often than not, the body of the multiple personality must suffer the consequences even though this punishes the "innocent" personalities along with guilty. Otherwise, the guilty personality could commit mayhem without worrying about being punished. By the same token, if a promiscuous personality contracts AIDS, the virgin or safe-sex personalities also get it. Often the lay person rationalizes this injustice by insisting that all personalities are really just one person and therefore are responsible for what any of the personalities do. But in practice it doesn't seem like this.

Some Characteristics of Multiple Personalities

Usually there are hierarchies of consciousness in multiple personalities. In other words, some personalities are co-conscious with other personalities but do not directly experience what they experience. For example, if personality x is tortured, personality y may be aware of it, but not suffer the pain. Personalities can be co-conscious with some personalities, but not others. Let's say personality Jane is not aware of what personality Judy does, and Judy is aware of what Jane does, but not aware of what personality Melanie does. Jane will not be able to explain the things that Judy does and Judy will not be able to explain what Melanie does. Melanie on the other hand will be able to explain what everyone does. If the client is a child then she may be punished unfairly for things that she really didn't do (or did she?). (The excuse that "my other personality did that" is not likely to be accepted by the parent and she will punished not only for other personality's misbehavior, but also for "lying.")

Causes of Multiple Personality

The book insists on calling this problem "Dissociative Identity Disorder." My opinion is that psychologists and psychiatrists do too much of "medical labeling" and "psycho-babble." Perhaps you see (be a structuralist for a moment and "introspect" on this) how this labeling makes the mental health practitioner sound knowledgeable and scientific. It also obscures the meaning for common folk by making it sound like you need an advanced degree to understand what it is. Almost everyone knows what "multiple personalities" are, but only the "intellectually elite" know what "DID" is. If you want to play the phony and give your family and friends the impression that you know more about psychopathology than you do, go around using the fancy terms in DSM-IV (which is also jargon) and take the risk of being seen either as one of the intelligentia or simply a pompous horse's patoot. ("Horse's patoot," according to the DSM-IV, is psychological disorder 11.4.7!) And keep in mind, just because you give something a name doesn't mean you've explained it!

Multiple personalities are caused by repeated exposure to extreme conditions of torture or torment. It is hard to appreciate how bad torture can be at the hands of someone who has no limits of disgust or repulsion. For example (the following may not be suitable for impressionable minds): a multiple personality client I saw was repeatedly gang-raped by members of devil cult and when she eventually became pregnant, they ripped the fetus out of her and forced her to eat it. She was also forced to eat her own excrement and was made to lay on top a horizontal statue of Satan with an erect phallus which had been heated to a high temperature. She was then penetrated deeply by this hot metal penis while cult members looked on, chanting praises to "Our Lord Satan." It is hard to imagine how painful this must have been but it does make splitting into multiple personalities seem a reasonable and relatively effective way to handle extreme torment like this. The next time you hear someone say "Things couldn't be much worse" you will know that they can! So let's move on.
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