They are essentially attempting to recast multiplicity as a perceptual delusion. Having failed to wipe us out via Paul McHugh's 'ignore the alters and they will go away', they seek a more effective way to eradicate us. They've changed their story on what our intrinsic nature is-- not many people in one body, we now lack even the dubious dignity of being fragments of one person which have attained autonomy: instead, the newthink goes, our mere existence is a delusion on the part of some nebulous 'real person.' Our 'problem' now consists not in being shattered persons, but in being single, delusional people who falsely believe there are others sharing the body, and, significantly, who experience distortions of -perception- in regard to self-image, a point relatively little dealt with in earlier literature.
The phrasing 'claim to be seperate persons even though only one is present' is significant, not only for its exposure of the arrogant underlying assumption that one body equals one person and that any other arrangement is sheerly impossible, but for its insinuation that we hold the belief that others in the system are physically present when they are not. System members 'claim to be'-- not 'are'-- of the opposite sex, differing ethnicities, even different species, etc-- in spite of, it is implied, the fact that the body does not match their self-image nor change to fit them. One wonders how a therapist who described transgendered patients as merely 'claiming' to be of a different gender would be received. If we 'claim' different appearances from the body in spite of obvious overwhelming physical evidence against it, it is implied, we must be suffering from some sort of cognitive delusion or even hallucination-- clearly, we cannot hold the belief that we are of a different race or gender when the body is not of that race or gender, unless some persistent delusion exists about the appearance of the body, so the thinking goes. We cannot hold the belief that there is more than one person when there is only one body, unless some delusion exists. The concept that there can be more than one person in a body is not even prematurely considered as potentially valid at all, merely assumed into the whole equation as an absolute impossible.
It also shows the degree of disconnect between doctor and patient: hearing a member of a multiple system describe her hair as red when the body's is blonde, for instance, the doctor does not bother to ask the question of how she can look different, but unquestioningly assumes the disparity between self-image and physical body is another evidence of the 'client's' delusion.
But it seems to be following along a worrisome trend. Multiplicity has not died or faded into obscurity as many skeptics had hoped and predicted, and some doctors are getting their panties in a bunch about what to do with us-- how to get rid of us or at least shut us up. Reworking us as delusions seems to be the answer they've come up with. There is an increasing trend in therapists' offices to diagnose multiples-- especially multiples who self-disclose to their therapists, rather than have it suggested to them-- as psychotic. As psychotics, of course, every challenge we present to them can be conveniently shrugged off on the pretext that all our ideas, perceptions and opinions are distorted byproducts of our delusional thinking, and we can be drugged to the point where we present and behave as single, if dazed and barely conscious, persons.
no subject
The phrasing 'claim to be seperate persons even though only one is present' is significant, not only for its exposure of the arrogant underlying assumption that one body equals one person and that any other arrangement is sheerly impossible, but for its insinuation that we hold the belief that others in the system are physically present when they are not. System members 'claim to be'-- not 'are'-- of the opposite sex, differing ethnicities, even different species, etc-- in spite of, it is implied, the fact that the body does not match their self-image nor change to fit them. One wonders how a therapist who described transgendered patients as merely 'claiming' to be of a different gender would be received. If we 'claim' different appearances from the body in spite of obvious overwhelming physical evidence against it, it is implied, we must be suffering from some sort of cognitive delusion or even hallucination-- clearly, we cannot hold the belief that we are of a different race or gender when the body is not of that race or gender, unless some persistent delusion exists about the appearance of the body, so the thinking goes. We cannot hold the belief that there is more than one person when there is only one body, unless some delusion exists. The concept that there can be more than one person in a body is not even prematurely considered as potentially valid at all, merely assumed into the whole equation as an absolute impossible.
It also shows the degree of disconnect between doctor and patient: hearing a member of a multiple system describe her hair as red when the body's is blonde, for instance, the doctor does not bother to ask the question of how she can look different, but unquestioningly assumes the disparity between self-image and physical body is another evidence of the 'client's' delusion.
But it seems to be following along a worrisome trend. Multiplicity has not died or faded into obscurity as many skeptics had hoped and predicted, and some doctors are getting their panties in a bunch about what to do with us-- how to get rid of us or at least shut us up. Reworking us as delusions seems to be the answer they've come up with. There is an increasing trend in therapists' offices to diagnose multiples-- especially multiples who self-disclose to their therapists, rather than have it suggested to them-- as psychotic. As psychotics, of course, every challenge we present to them can be conveniently shrugged off on the pretext that all our ideas, perceptions and opinions are distorted byproducts of our delusional thinking, and we can be drugged to the point where we present and behave as single, if dazed and barely conscious, persons.
Azu and Ruka