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multiplicity_archivesA new MPD/DID book came out last week. We started reading it at work and right away it has us wanting to throw things.
"With few exceptions, the response has been riveted attention, people often nodding their heads affirmatively as I described various personalities or inner episodes.
When I have asked why they were reacting so strongly, the response was almost always the same. “I’m nodding because it’s my story, too. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have MPD. But I can really relate to different inner personae. Unlike people with MPD, I don’t have memory blocks between those personae, but I act so differently with different people, in different places, at different times.” One person elaborated: “When I have a difficult decision to make, I always convene an inner committee meeting. I allow all parts of me to air opinions; that way I know that all of me owns the decision.”
I have come to think that a lot of people, possibly all people, have multiple personae. Everyone I know reports feeling differently and acting differently in different places and with different people. Many describe various “roles” or “masks,” suggesting that my experience may be an extreme exaggeration of what is normal human behavior.
Probably the biggest difference between “normal multiplicity” and MPD is that most people recall what happens when they move through their array of personae. By contrast, MPD is characterized by rigid memory walls that prevent such recall until therapy begins to break down the barriers. While normal people have “multiple personae,” they do not suffere from “multiple identities.” In this sense, the new term, dissociative identity disorder, is more descriptive of what is commonly called “multiple personality disorder.”
So, while acknowledging that my case is extremely rare, maybe the multiple framework is embedded in all human beings."
- A Fractured Mind by Robert Oxnam, pages 4-5
It's mind-boggling to me how multiples can come up with this stuff. It's understandable that singles might get confused because they have nothing to make a comparison with but shouldn't a multiple be able to see the difference? It's no wonder that singles have trouble understanding the difference between multiplicity and people having different sides to their personality when crap like that is appearing in the literature.
It's just...Ugh! And that's just in the prologue. I really should learn to stop reading these books.
Edit:
"I began to surmise who was most active at any time. It was surely Robbey when there was a great pressure to compile to-do-lists….
I found myself in a strange twilight zone between managing a demanding outer professional world and beginning to comprehend the influences of various parts of my MPD Castle. Curiously, I began to adapt to an existence of bouncing between sharply defined outer challenges and partially understood thoughts and moods. Although I knew my disorder was serious and rare, I also began to wonder if I wasn’t experiencing something of the everyday life of “normal people.” Don’t most people experience waves of thoughts and feelings that often affect outer behaviors?
[cut text]
Is it possible that unconscious or semiconscious “conversations” also occur among different mental parts of integrated persons? I wondered—do I have an extreme form of normal human thought and behavior in which my various internal parts are more discrete, with separate names, personalities, and memories? Aren’t the required skills of MPD therapy---learning to listen to voices in your own head and to shape more healthy behaviors based on these conversations—really at the heart of any psychological therapy?"
Bob, pg 97.
"As memory barriers become fixed and are maintained over time, the personalities on opposite sides develop separate histories, values, allegiances, possessions, and relationships. All of us have different sides to ourselves. Multiples are not unique in this way. The difference is that "singletons," as multiples sometimes call the rest of us, have a shared consciousness and memory. We, too, have different facets or parts of themselves, but our sense of our own identity is unitary."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 266
“For non-multiples, dealing with internal conflict is part of life. We have mixed feelings about many things. Much of the work of psychotherapy has to do with working out unconscious conflicts of values. When DID patients deal with conflict, it is experienced as a conflict between alters. The jockeying that goes on among alters is, in effect, the equivalent of singletons’ struggle with internal conflicts. As DID patients approach integration, they are shocked to find themselves inheritors of internal conflict. They are often taken by surprise since they have little experience in dealing with such conflict."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 280
"It had not occurred to me that I was “different” when I answered the phone. On the other hand, [in session] I was “tuned in” to her world. It was not artificial, or even voluntary, that my voice, manner, and inner feeling were drastically differently. [cut text] When she brought this to my attention, my awareness of my own states moved from background to foreground, from implicit to explicit. [cut text] I could attach words and “think” about what the words represented. This experience has left me much more conscious of the variability of facets in what I used to think of as a unitary self. I have learned much more that I would otherwise have known about how different facets of my personality correspond to different desires and goals that are more loosely “integrated” than I might have thought.
This distinction is important in understanding how we slosh around within ourselves. Explicityly, those of us who are not multiple think of ourselves as “a” person. We identify that person with a name and personal characteristics. [cut text] There may be many sets of feelings or feeling states, perhaps associated with different situations and surroundings. These different facets of ourselves may be incompatible, or even contradictory.
Multiples and nonmultiples can benefit equally from addressing internal conflicts and contradictions. Young Bob’s innocence and idealism were in conflict with Robert’s pragmatism and Bobby’s desire to do what felt good. As I said, nonmultiples experience the same thing as internal conflict."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 283
"With few exceptions, the response has been riveted attention, people often nodding their heads affirmatively as I described various personalities or inner episodes.
When I have asked why they were reacting so strongly, the response was almost always the same. “I’m nodding because it’s my story, too. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have MPD. But I can really relate to different inner personae. Unlike people with MPD, I don’t have memory blocks between those personae, but I act so differently with different people, in different places, at different times.” One person elaborated: “When I have a difficult decision to make, I always convene an inner committee meeting. I allow all parts of me to air opinions; that way I know that all of me owns the decision.”
I have come to think that a lot of people, possibly all people, have multiple personae. Everyone I know reports feeling differently and acting differently in different places and with different people. Many describe various “roles” or “masks,” suggesting that my experience may be an extreme exaggeration of what is normal human behavior.
Probably the biggest difference between “normal multiplicity” and MPD is that most people recall what happens when they move through their array of personae. By contrast, MPD is characterized by rigid memory walls that prevent such recall until therapy begins to break down the barriers. While normal people have “multiple personae,” they do not suffere from “multiple identities.” In this sense, the new term, dissociative identity disorder, is more descriptive of what is commonly called “multiple personality disorder.”
So, while acknowledging that my case is extremely rare, maybe the multiple framework is embedded in all human beings."
- A Fractured Mind by Robert Oxnam, pages 4-5
It's mind-boggling to me how multiples can come up with this stuff. It's understandable that singles might get confused because they have nothing to make a comparison with but shouldn't a multiple be able to see the difference? It's no wonder that singles have trouble understanding the difference between multiplicity and people having different sides to their personality when crap like that is appearing in the literature.
It's just...Ugh! And that's just in the prologue. I really should learn to stop reading these books.
Edit:
"I began to surmise who was most active at any time. It was surely Robbey when there was a great pressure to compile to-do-lists….
I found myself in a strange twilight zone between managing a demanding outer professional world and beginning to comprehend the influences of various parts of my MPD Castle. Curiously, I began to adapt to an existence of bouncing between sharply defined outer challenges and partially understood thoughts and moods. Although I knew my disorder was serious and rare, I also began to wonder if I wasn’t experiencing something of the everyday life of “normal people.” Don’t most people experience waves of thoughts and feelings that often affect outer behaviors?
[cut text]
Is it possible that unconscious or semiconscious “conversations” also occur among different mental parts of integrated persons? I wondered—do I have an extreme form of normal human thought and behavior in which my various internal parts are more discrete, with separate names, personalities, and memories? Aren’t the required skills of MPD therapy---learning to listen to voices in your own head and to shape more healthy behaviors based on these conversations—really at the heart of any psychological therapy?"
Bob, pg 97.
"As memory barriers become fixed and are maintained over time, the personalities on opposite sides develop separate histories, values, allegiances, possessions, and relationships. All of us have different sides to ourselves. Multiples are not unique in this way. The difference is that "singletons," as multiples sometimes call the rest of us, have a shared consciousness and memory. We, too, have different facets or parts of themselves, but our sense of our own identity is unitary."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 266
“For non-multiples, dealing with internal conflict is part of life. We have mixed feelings about many things. Much of the work of psychotherapy has to do with working out unconscious conflicts of values. When DID patients deal with conflict, it is experienced as a conflict between alters. The jockeying that goes on among alters is, in effect, the equivalent of singletons’ struggle with internal conflicts. As DID patients approach integration, they are shocked to find themselves inheritors of internal conflict. They are often taken by surprise since they have little experience in dealing with such conflict."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 280
"It had not occurred to me that I was “different” when I answered the phone. On the other hand, [in session] I was “tuned in” to her world. It was not artificial, or even voluntary, that my voice, manner, and inner feeling were drastically differently. [cut text] When she brought this to my attention, my awareness of my own states moved from background to foreground, from implicit to explicit. [cut text] I could attach words and “think” about what the words represented. This experience has left me much more conscious of the variability of facets in what I used to think of as a unitary self. I have learned much more that I would otherwise have known about how different facets of my personality correspond to different desires and goals that are more loosely “integrated” than I might have thought.
This distinction is important in understanding how we slosh around within ourselves. Explicityly, those of us who are not multiple think of ourselves as “a” person. We identify that person with a name and personal characteristics. [cut text] There may be many sets of feelings or feeling states, perhaps associated with different situations and surroundings. These different facets of ourselves may be incompatible, or even contradictory.
Multiples and nonmultiples can benefit equally from addressing internal conflicts and contradictions. Young Bob’s innocence and idealism were in conflict with Robert’s pragmatism and Bobby’s desire to do what felt good. As I said, nonmultiples experience the same thing as internal conflict."
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Robert’s therapist. Pg 283
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 01:57 am (UTC)Yeah we just "name our emotions" remember? *headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 02:14 am (UTC)Lovely. Everyone's multiple! This is reminiscent of literature suggesting that everyone is also polyamorous or bisexual. "I see points in common! I shall overextend and form needless assumptions as a self-comforting mechanism!" Goodness gracious. I am going back to bed.
How is the rest of the book?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 02:40 am (UTC)I guess if it makes that person feel better to think that "everyone is a multiple", fine good for them. But putting this in a book and getting it published... fuck.. it just makes everything more complicated for the rest of us.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 02:42 am (UTC)The first chapter is boring. He's all "Look at how rich and successful I am! I went to Yale and was on TV and talked to famous people on the phone. Oh yeah, and don't forget the alcoholic, bullimic, anger management problem."
Supposedly the group integrated from eleven to three but the first chapter is written by someone who is supposed to have integrated. We'll have to see what they're calling integration.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 03:41 am (UTC)Barfff. This is putting my mind in traction. Can you maybe write up a review for Pavilion? -- *sends you cola syrup or whatever for your stomach* It doesn't have to be long.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 04:45 am (UTC)By using the word "multiple" to mean distinctly separate identities, rather than shared identity or parts of a whole, this community is attempting to change a word that already has a well-known meaning in both popular and medical literature. I think that a lot of these misunderstandings have to do with this aspect of vocabulary.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 04:58 am (UTC)Aside from that, the gratuitous descriptions of his affluent lifestyle make me think of Cameron West, although this person apparently does have a few published books to his name.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 05:25 am (UTC)With the possible exception for the person with the inner committe, he's not describing median or aspected singles. He's just describing normal human personality then wandering off into la-la land. There's a big difference between saying that all of the people in the system are part of one true person and the shrink deciding that we're incapable of inner conflict without it manifesting as a disagreement between more than one of us.
If this shrink spent any amount of time listening to his patients, he should have been able to pick up on the fact that the people in the system aren't the cookie-cutter cut-outs that he describes at the back of the book. The multiple who wrote the book is clearly buying into a lot of the crap that his therapist taught him but he should still know better. The idea that only one person in a system is capable of experiencing any given emotion or desire is just silly.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 05:42 am (UTC)The guy doesn't so much describe his affluent lifestyle as he summarizes every success in his educational and professional career with plenty of attention paid to anything he did faster or better than his peers. There was also lots of name-dropping. I'm not sure if the chapter was meant to boost his ego or to highlight the dichotomy between outer success and inner turmoil or to make people take him seriously. In any case, it was yawn worthy.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 08:30 am (UTC)Something to think about...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:15 am (UTC)There are lots of "me" - but they are all ME, dammit. I can tell when Ash & Annabelle switch (I try and expalain how I can tell just by looking at them but it's difficult, I don't think they believe me entirely) and they are different. I'm just me. Sure there is "studious me" and "playful me" and "depressed me" - but yeesh... I'm not multiple. Stupid over-inclusive author.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:25 am (UTC)Yeah, because MPD is just emotions with memory blocks, and multiples are just people who name sides of themselves.
christ, just when you think it's getting better it gets worse.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 08:02 pm (UTC)For some reason, I thought that the therapeutic community, who this fellow was obviously influenced by, was through with that simplistic crap. How naive of me.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:34 pm (UTC)We read "shared identity" as shorthand for "they're all you": as in, that's what the psych community thinks it is and that's the way it's been written up in most of the books that are available so far.
As you said, it's a rare psych indeed that actually listens to the clients rather than just imposing his value system on them. The way you describe this book, this guy sounds like he's trying to be the good little client giving the doctor what he wants. The DID book for the 2000s. Explains everything neat and tidy and none of that separate persons stuff.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-01 06:57 am (UTC)He claims that when he was later approached by Flora Schreiber about using his material from his work with Shirley for the book, he said he thought Shirley was a highly hypnotizable, flamboyant hysteric. Schreiber and Wilbur insisted (he says now) that she be described as a multiple "because otherwise the book won't sell". Spiegel describes himself as virtuously, ethically refusing to say Shirley was something she "wasn't."
Connie Wilbur did not make herself well liked by her fellow clinicians and therapists, and it is no wonder that after her death, they're eager to defrock her. The truth may never be known. Peter Swales was supposed to be working on a nonfiction book about Shirley and Connie, but got sidetracked by his work on Marilyn Monroe, so it may be a while.