I may be paranoid but maybe brainwashing is a key part of integration? (not that some don't need their brains washed from time to time :p) but the two processes seem to have at least some in common.
You're not totally off. From what we've heard, the process of integration involves literally re-conditioning your way of thinking-- training you to think and react as a single person, rather than as many. A lot of older theories of integration saw it as being simply 'putting the broken pieces back together'-- the idea was that multiplicity was an unnatural state, and that the natural inclination of the mind was towards being a single person (even William James disputed this). If you could squeeze everyone together, the thinking went, the 'original self' would fuse like a broken bone.
What happens in reality, though, is that even a person who begins as a fragment of another can develop. Personality doesn't break up into all these little neatly defined pieces-- even if someone starts out only being capable of certain tasks or feeling certain emotions, if they spend enough time at front and have to change and develop in response to the challenges placed on them by the earth world, they can develop new skills, acquire the ability to feel a range of emotions. If they become capable of handling the body's life in their own right, the idea that they still need to be merged with others in order to be 'whole' becomes much more dubious.
thanks for the reply. heh, longer plz. Im sure ill be getting flamed soon for my length's tho.
You're fine. Nobody flames anyone else on this group-- it's in the community info. If you do, you get your post deleted and get warned by the mod, and then kicked off. If you're afraid your post is too long, you might want to put it behind an lj-cut.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 04:17 am (UTC)You're not totally off. From what we've heard, the process of integration involves literally re-conditioning your way of thinking-- training you to think and react as a single person, rather than as many. A lot of older theories of integration saw it as being simply 'putting the broken pieces back together'-- the idea was that multiplicity was an unnatural state, and that the natural inclination of the mind was towards being a single person (even William James disputed this). If you could squeeze everyone together, the thinking went, the 'original self' would fuse like a broken bone.
What happens in reality, though, is that even a person who begins as a fragment of another can develop. Personality doesn't break up into all these little neatly defined pieces-- even if someone starts out only being capable of certain tasks or feeling certain emotions, if they spend enough time at front and have to change and develop in response to the challenges placed on them by the earth world, they can develop new skills, acquire the ability to feel a range of emotions. If they become capable of handling the body's life in their own right, the idea that they still need to be merged with others in order to be 'whole' becomes much more dubious.
thanks for the reply. heh, longer plz. Im sure ill be getting flamed soon for my length's tho.
You're fine. Nobody flames anyone else on this group-- it's in the community info. If you do, you get your post deleted and get warned by the mod, and then kicked off. If you're afraid your post is too long, you might want to put it behind an lj-cut.