Why are Entities Multiplied? Multiple Personality Disorder in American Popular Fiction

Abstract

Since the mid-20th century, dissociative identity disorder (DID) has been one of the most exciting subject-matters in American popular fiction. Sh. Jackson’ The Bird’s Nest (1954) and C. Thigpen & H. Cleckley’s The Three Faces of Eve (1957) marked the first peak of popularity of ‘multiple personality’ texts. However, it was only after R. Bloch’s Psycho (1959), that split personality became firmly connected to child sexual abuse. Split Consciousness Novel became formulaic after F. Schreiber’s Sybil (1973), where the protagonist’s ego-states further multiplied. Its publication in 1973 marked the second peak of the popularity of the genre. Moreover, it triggered the public imagination bringing about the DID epidemics, possibly hysterical, and heated discussions concerning the validity of this diagnosis. Split Consciousness Novel highlights the paradoxes of psychotherapy and communication at large. The authors of the essay deconstruct The Minds of Billy Milligan in detail since it problematizes psychic disease as ethical paradox.

Keywords

• dissociative identity disorder
• split consciousness novel
• psychiatry
• sexual trauma
• billy milligan
• medical humanities