Authentic Counselling Training
Personality Dissociation:
Subpersonalities and Multiple Personality
[Under construction: 1 July 2005 ]
Introduction
A common belief is that having a cohesive and coherent physical body means
having a cohesive and coherent personality. This belief goes further, and
suggests that anyone whose personality is not cohesive and coherent must be in
need of psychiatric help. Anyone who behaves as though they are sometimes
personable Dr. Jekyll, and sometimes brutish Mr. Hyde,
is traditionally considered to have a `split personality'. Sibyl (1) is
an account (and a film) written by Flora Rheta Schreiber about Sibyl, a woman who had sixteen
personalities. Jekyll and Hyde knew of each other's existence. Some of Sibyl's
personalities knew nothing of each other, and Sibyl was amnesiac between
episodes in one personality and episodes in another. These are within the realm
of multiple personality.
The realm of subpersonalities is less frightening, although there can be times when it is troubling or troublesome. Conceptualising subpersonalities is not difficult, and different models are useful for different purposes. To begin with, staying much with the common conception of personality, it may be helpful to picture one's own personality as a crystal, maybe a diamond. A crystal is a cohesive and coherent whole, yet has different facets. Each facet is a unique feature of the crystal. When each facet of the crystal is examined carefully, the crystal appears different. From inside the crystal, looking out of the facets as though they were windows, the view of the world through each facet would be different. These points illustrate two features of subpersonalities: the way other people experience us depends in part on which subpersonality they are encountering; the way we experience the world depends on which subpersonality we are using.
The first stage in any exploration of subpersonalities is to identify them. It might be reasonable to think in terms of a total of about half a dozen principal subpersonalities, half a dozen secondary subpersonalities, and any number of bits and pieces.
References
1. Schreiber, F.R., Sibyl, 1974, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
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