Alterity: Learning polyvalent selves, resisting disabling notions of the self

Abstract

Within dominant U.S. popular and psychiatric culture, adults who experience more than one distinct consciousness-that is, those who experience alterity, or the presence of "alters" or other personalities-are often pathologized as suffering from dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder).This chapter queries how one type of human difference-alterity, the experience of multiple distinct consciousnesses, or "alters," by one person-is pathologized in American culture. This experience is inscribed as a mental illness, labeled now as dissociative identity disorder (DID; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) and formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD; American Psychiatric Association, 1980). In this analysis, the notion of the modernist subject or self as a linear, cohesive, unitary consciousness is challenged as a method of suppressing difference. Alternative language is proposed for talking about the self. Those who experience alterity can be said to experience polyvalent selves. If a singular self is commonplace, then polyvalent selves are queer, unusual, different, and worthy of study because such difference represents a creative and dynamic uncertainty that cannot be easily suppressed, explained, or interpreted away by modernist institutions and theories. Utilizing a postmodern and public pedagogy framework, I analyzed cinematic texts that depicted alterity to identify messages in popular culture that might be disabling to adult learners who experience alterity. The films reviewed consistently depicted alters as distinct and separate entities who, despite inhabiting the same body, communicate with difficulty. They also usually depicted alterity as a diseased condition caused by trauma that must be remembered in order to heal a putatively shattered self.

Silence or Sanism: A Review of the Dearth of Discussions on Mental Illness in Adult Education

“…Film media is especially salient for imparting popular (mis)conceptions of addictions and mental illness in ways that adult learners observe and replicate them in educating 'sane' audiences (Noble, ). In another way, 'cinematic texts' can be something quite regressive for learners experiencing multiple personality disorder (MPD) where screenscapes depict alterity in purely negative ways as 'brain disease', or denies validity to alterity as a "benign human difference" (Walker, , p. 47). Walker () is interesting insomuch as it's neither pro‐ or anti‐psychiatry, instead the author inquires, what's in between alterity as a natural human state and the diagnostic 'Othering' of 'polyvalent selves' as mental illness?…”

“…Walker's exegesis of selected cinematic texts suggests these films portray characters' polyvalent selves as 'discrete' and 'autonomous' selves (the two need not be counterposed but can be), bereft of 'co‐consciousness'; rather, he argues, selves can cohabitate along the same continuum and exist together. Depictions where 'autonomous' selves are sundered from a 'whole self' "is not universal and may be learned or imposed" (Walker, , p. 48). Motion pictures are sites through which adult learners organize to discuss films critical of the psychiatric firmament (Burstow, ).…”

“…Motion pictures are sites through which adult learners organize to discuss films critical of the psychiatric firmament (Burstow, ). Walker () remonstrates against the biomedical, unidimensional (mono‐)discourse that reinforces alterity as an attribute of diseased minds. This monodiscourse is evidenced "in adult educational theory on the self and learning" (Walker, , p. 46), as well "remains hegemonic" and popularized through forms of popular culture (p. 46).…”

“…Psychiatry sets neurodivergence against the criterion laid out by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (Spring, 2016). Adult Educators must question the "deeply ingrained and peculiarly Western notion that, constitutionally, all adults who experience alterity are mentally ill" (Walker, , p. 47). Mad folk have relayed how some aspects of themselves are "constantly manipulated by medical and caregiving authorities" (Noble, , p. 4).…”

Sanism, Black Dogs Barking, and Mental Illness

“…What I have learned about depression from Stephen Brookfield's () forthright descriptions of his struggles with dealing with the diagnosis and management of depression is that our paternalistic attitudes interfere with managing and understanding depression. Wayd Walker () goes a bit further maintaining that we must resist disabling notions of self which occur regularly in society and are reinforced through literature, film, and other media.…”