Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T01:25:53.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Multiple personality: A single case study with a 15 year follow-up

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Brian Cutler  and
John Reed
Brian Cutler
Affiliation:
Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London
John Reed*
Affiliation:
Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London
*
1Address for correspondence and requests for reprints: John Reed, Department of Psychological Medicine, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, West Smithfield, London, EC1A 7BE.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A review of the literature relating to multiple personality is presented together with a study of a single case of hysterical aetiology that demonstrates the development of multiple personality from a fugue amnesic state. A re-examination of this case after 15 years without significant psychotherapeutic intervention demonstrates a tendency towards remission. The view that multiple personality is a form of fugue, not necessarily hysterical, in which an alternative personality is adopted and that this behaviour is reinforced by the attention that it receives, is discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , February 1975 , pp. 18 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abeles, M., and Schilder, P. (1935). Psychogenic loss of personal identity. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 34, 587–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azam, E. (1876). Amnésie périodique ou dédoublement de la vie. Annales Médico-Psychologiques, 16, 5–35.Google Scholar
Binet, A. (1896) Alterations of Personality. Chapman and Hall: London.Google Scholar
Camuset, L. (1882). Un cas de dédoublement de la personnalité. Période amnésique d'une année chez un jeune homme hystérique. Annales Médico-Psychologiques, 7, 75–86.Google Scholar
Condon, W. S., Ogston, W. D., and Pacoe, L. V. (1969). Three faces of Eve revisited: a study of transient microstrabismus. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74, 618–620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Congdon, M. H., Hain, J., and Stevenson, I. (1961). A case of multiple personality illustrating the transition from role-playing. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 132, 497–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Copeland, C. L., and Kitching, E. H. (1937). A case of profound dissociation of personality. Journal of Mental Science, 83, 719–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feuerbach, A. R. von (1828). Aktenmässige Darstellung merkwürdiger Verbrechen. Heyer: Giessen.Google Scholar
Flournoy, T. (1900). Des Indes à la Planète Mars, Etude sur un cas de Somnambulisme avec Glossolalie. 3rd edn.Eggimann: Geneva.Google Scholar
Franz, S. I. (1933). Persons 1 and 3: a Study of Multiple Personalities. McGraw-Hill: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forsyth, D. (1939). A case of a middle-aged embezzler. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 18, 141–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruenewald, D. (1971). Hyponotic techniques without hypnosis in the treatment of dual personality. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 153, 41–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harriman, P. L. (1943). A new approach to multiple personality. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 13, 638–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, W. (1889). Notes on automatic writing. Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1, 548–564.Google Scholar
Janet, P. (1887). L'anaesthesie systematisé et la dissociation de phenomenon psychologique. Revue Philosophique, 23, 449–472.Google Scholar
Janet, P. (1907). The Major Symptoms of Hysteria. MacMillan: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A. (1953). Hysterical dissociation in dementia paralytica. Monatschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, 125, 589–604.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lipton, S. (1943). Dissociated personality: a case report. Psychiatric Quarterly, 17, 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipton, S. (1948). Dissociated personality: status of case after five years. Psychiatric Quarterly, 22, 252–256.Google ScholarPubMed
Ljungberg, L. (1957). Hysteria; a clinical, prognostic and genetic study. Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, 32, Suppl. 112.Google Scholar
Ludwig, A. M., Brandsma, J. M., Wilbur, C. B., Bendfleet, F., and Jameson, D. H. (1972). The objective study of a multiple personality, or, are four heads better than one? Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 298–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maddison, D. C. (1953). A case of double personality. Medical Journal of Australia, 1, 814–816.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mason, R. O. (1895). Duplex personality. Its relation to hypnotism and to lucidity. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 20, 420–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer-Gross, W., Slater, E., and Roth, M. (1969). Clinical Psychiatry. 3rd edn.Baillière: London.Google Scholar
Mayo, T. (1845). Case of double consciousness. London Medical Gazette, New Series, 1, 1202–1203.Google Scholar
Mesnet, E. (1874). De l'automatisme de la mémoire et du souvenir, dans le somnambulisme pathologique—considérations médico-légales. Union Médicale, 13th series, 18, 105, and 117–122.Google Scholar
Mitchell, S. W. (1888). Case of double consciousness. Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 3rd series, 10, 366–389.Google Scholar
Mitchill, S. L. (1816). A double consciousness, or a duality of person in the same individual. Medical Repository (New Series), 3, 185–186.Google Scholar
Orzech, A. Z., McGuire, C., and Longnecker, E. D. (1958). Multiple self concepts as affected by mood states. American Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 349–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, A. E., (1894). People who drop out of sight. Medico-Legal Journal of New York, 12, 22–41.Google Scholar
Plumer, W. S. (1860). Mary Reynolds: a case of double consciousness. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 20, 807–812.Google Scholar
Prince, M. (1905). The Dissociation of a Personality. Longmans: New York.Google Scholar
Proust, A. (1890). Automatisme ambulatoire chez un hystérique. Revue de l'Hypnotisme et de la Psychologie Physiologique, 4, 267–269.Google Scholar
Riggall, R. M. (1923). Dual personality. Lancet, 1, 1155–1157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidis, B., and Goodhart, S. P. (1905). Multiple Personality: an Experimental Investigation into the Nature of Human Individuality. Appleton: New York.Google Scholar
Skae, D. (1845). Case of intermittent mental disorder of the tertian type, with double consciousness. Northern Journal of Medicine, 4, 10–13.Google Scholar
Stengel, E. (1939). Studies on the psychopathology of compulsive wandering: preliminary report. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 18, 250–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stengel, E. (1943). Further studies on pathological wandering (fugues with the impulse to wander). Journal of Mental Science, 89, 224–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutcliffe, J. P., and Jones, J. (1962). Personal identity, multiple personality, and hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 10, 231–269.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, W. S., and Martin, M. F. (1944). Multiple personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 39, 281–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thigpen, C. H., and Cleckley, H. M. (1954). A case of multiple personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 135–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed