Multiple Personality and Splitting Phenomena: A Reconceptualization

Hypnosis creates multiple personality: Myth or reality?

“…Several writers (Bowers, Brecher-Marer, Newton, Piotrowski, Spyer, Taylor & Watkins, 1971;Gruenewald, 1971Gruenewald, ,1977Horton & Miller, 1972) warn against unintentional shaping of behavior and reinforcing ideas of multiple personality that a patient might have. Gruenewald (1977) maintains that a therapist's interest in, or curiosity about, the dramatic aspects of multiple personality may reinforce further splitting, especially if hypnosis is used to contact the dissociated parts.…”

“…Gruenewald (1977) maintains that a therapist's interest in, or curiosity about, the dramatic aspects of multiple personality may reinforce further splitting, especially if hypnosis is used to contact the dissociated parts. She reasons that the mechanisms of dissociation in hypnosis and in multiple personality may be similar, and, therefore, the use of hypnosis may facilitate the emergence of additional personalities.…”

On multiple personality: Comments on diagnosis, etiology, and treatment

“…Many of them do in fact display various hysterical conversion symptoms, such as blindness, paralyses, aphonia, and seizures (Congdon, Hain, & Stevenson, 1961;Coons, 1980). Other multiple personality patients, however, have been described whose accompanying personality organization of the main personality may range from obsessive-compulsive (Bowers & Brecher, 1955) to narcissistic (Gruenewald, 1977). Some of these patients have also been diagnosed by others as "schizophrenic" (Allison, 1974;Ludwig, Brandsma, Wilbur, Bendfeldt, & Jameson, 1972).…”

Am I What I Wear?

“…It seems to me that this is both the threat and the temptation of clothes for the borderline person: the possibility of stepping out of a shakily held sense of self, of becoming another. The ability to become another in borderline conditions makes Gruenewald (7) conclude that the syndrome of multiple personality should be reconceptualized "not as a form of hysteria, but as belonging with the psychology of narcissistic disorders".…”