readings> multiple personalities
A killer claims
he is
innocent because his ‘alter ’ did it. A woman tells
a psychiatric conference she is inhabited by more than 180
personalities. Can the human mind really play host to multiple selves?
‘Julia’ presents a classic case of multiple
personality disorder. She describes how she has been’losing
time’ since she was a child. She once came round in
an unfamiliar classroom to discover that a chunk of nearly two years
had gone missing. Another time she found herself in a scummy bar
talking to a guy who seemed to know her an awful lot better than she
knew him.
In therapy, her alternate personalities began to emerge. Elizabeth was
the administrator who kept some order among the Inside People . George
was the burly protector who came out in moments of danger. Joanne was
the playful 12-year-old. Sandi was the terrified four-year-old, trapped
at the moment of abuse. In all, Julia had nearly 100 selves, although
many were not much more than fragments, having merely labels like Noise
or no names at all.
As therapy began to reveal these others to her, it appeared the
splitting had been caused by a childhood of extreme physical and sexual
abuse involving her mother, father and brother. Julia had contained
these experiences by dividing them up among a cast of characters. Now
she needed to break down the barriers of amnesia and make herself whole
once more.
Psychiatrists are furiously divided over whether cases like Julia are
genuine or fake. Can the self really disintegrate under pressure? Or is
multiple personality just a product of therapy itself, patients
responding to the suggestions of their counsellors?
It is certainly a fact that reports of multiple personality hardly
existed until the publication of Sybil in
1973. After this account of a woman cracking into 16 alters
due to abuse by her schizophrenic mother, diagnosis rocketed. Doubters
say this is proof it is an imagined syndrome – a modern fad.
But believers say it only proves therapists now know what to look for.
It is also a fact that there is a consistent pattern to the disorder.
Sufferers tend to have a high IQ – Sybil was said to be in
the genius class . As with Julia, there are usually recognisable types
among the alters, such as administrators , protectors and frightened
children. The average number of alters is 13, but super-multiples can
claim many more. At the First International Conference on Multiple
Personality, a woman called Cassandra set some sort of record by
claiming over 180. And behind practically every case there lies a tale
of extreme and prolonged childhood abuse. Importantly, the abuse has to
happen during early childhood – trauma even in teenage years
does not produce the disorder.
Believers point out that children have still growing brains and not
fully-integrated personalities so could be prone to a deep rooted
splitting where alternative selves with their own memories and
attitudes grab a share of the same brain. Doubters agree that most
sufferers have probably been abused, this fact leading them to the
therapist’s door. But their unstable mental health would
simply make them vulnerable to suggestions they may be repressing
memories of still worse crimes – memories perhaps known only
to some hidden personality.
Believers have tried to demonstrate that the alters are real
personalities taking over the patient’s body. Given eye
tests, some alters need glasses. They can switch their handedness. They
can have their own allergies. One person had alters that spoke
different languages like Arabic and Serbo-Croatian.
Such difference appear hard to fake. But the doubters counter with what
seems like a clinching fact - people with multiple personalities almost
always score exceptionally highly for hypnotisabilty. This would make
them perfect fodder for any therapist with a theory. As with recovered
memories, tales of satanic abuse, regressions to past lives, and other
controversies of modern psychotherapy, it could simply be that the
hypnosis routinely used to’get at’ the symptoms is
in fact producing the symptoms. Under hypnosis, imagined happenings
– and alternative personalities – become so vivid
as to seem real.
It is probably going too far to say all cases of multiple personality
are manufactured on the therapist’s couch. To turn the
argument around, a person who is highly hypnotisable and thus has an
unusual ability to dissociate would be expected to use this
skill to escape genuine abuse during childhood. As with hypnosis
itself, multiple personality disorder seems to exist in some grey area
between genuine and fake. No one can say how much therapy contributes
to elaboration of the personalities, giving them names and concrete
identities. But the initial splitting – the act of
dissociation – probably does take place at the moment of
abuse as the sufferers report.
court room stories
The question ‘is it faked or is real?’ certainly
matters in the courtroom. In the 1970s, Billy Milligan was arrested for
a series of rapes and robberies in Ohio and was found not guilty by
reason of insanity. Milligan blamed the crimes on 20 or more alter
egos. Arthur, an erudite Englishman fluent in Arabic, planned the
rapes. Ragen, a giant colour-blind Yugoslavian, started the attacks.
But the actual assaults were carried out by Adalana, an introverted
lesbian. Milligan, since freed as an out-patient, says most other cases
of multiple personality are obvious fakes.
In 1979, Kenneth Bianchi – the Hillside Strangler –
was charged with the rape and murder of two girls in Los Angeles.
Bianchi claimed to have blanked out during the attack. In therapy,
Steve emerged to say he had ‘fixed Ken good’. But
when another more dubious psychiatrist examined Bianchi and suggested
it was unusual to have just one alter, swiftly further personalities
began to appear. It was concluded he was faking. Bianchi eventually
confessed to committing the crimes with his cousin and was sentenced to
life imprisonment.
In a further twist on court appearances, in 1995 two women with
multiple personality disorders had their various alters sworn in
separately to give evidence in a civil suit against their psychiatrist,
Dr William Routt. They won a multi-million dollar judgement from
Minnesota courts because of claims Routt had sexually abused their
alters during therapy, swearing them to secrecy.
famous multiples
Christine Beauchamp (real name: Clara Fowler) – A Boston
professor, Morton Prince, gave the first book-length account of a case
of multiple personality in 1906. Christine, an introverted young
Radcliffe student came to him with a list of neurotic symptoms. Under
hypnosis, first emerged Sally, a flirtatious alter ego who would strip
naked or play tricks like sending her other half a box of spiders.
Later came an angry child-like figure dubbed the Devil or sometimes the
Idiot.
Eve White (real name: Christine Sizemore) – In the 1950s, a
demure 25-year-old telephonist was referred to Dr Corbett Thigpen
complaining of headaches and blackouts. She also heard voices. Hypnosis
revealed Eve Black, a provocative and wayward alter ego. Later came
Jane, a calm and mature personality. The case led to the celebrated
book and film, The Three Faces of Eve. In fact 19 more personalities
emerged in the decades following Eve’s
initial treatment with Thigpen.
Sybil Dorsett (real name: Shirley Mason) – Also in
the 1950s, a young Columbia University student began therapy with Dr
Cornelia Wilbur. Gradually over 11 years emerged a tale of abuse by her
schizophrenic mother. Sybil reported having fantasy playmates as a
child. Under hypnosis, these became 16 personalities inhabiting her own
mind. Sybil’s story was turned into a best-seller by a
journalist and continues to cause controversy over the extent to which
the personalities pre-existed the therapy.