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Inner Faces Of Multiplicity:
Contemporary Look at a Classic Mystery

by Jacklyn M. Pia

page 2

Presence of Alter Personalities

When a multiple switches it is typically rapid, usually occurring in 1-2 seconds although in some cases slightly more time is required. Switching may be a voluntary or involuntary event, initiated either through conscious willing, in response to an unconscious emotion or a situation which triggers "automatic" switching, or as a result of biochemical changes in the body.

Drs. Corbett Thigpen and Hervey Cleckley reported one of the first contemporary cases of multiple personality in 1954, in The Three Faces of Eve. They described their initial meeting with one of Eve's alters in a way that conveyed the eerie, trance-like quality that switching sometimes has:

The brooding look in her eyes became almost a stare. Eve seemed momentarily dazed. Suddenly her posture began to change. Her body slowly stiffened until she sat rigidly erect. An alien, inexplicable expression came over her face. This was suddenly erased into utter blankness. The lines of her countenance seemed to shift in a barely visible, slow rippling transformation. For a moment there was the impression of something arcane. Closing her eyes, she winced as she put her hands to her temples, pressed hard, and twisted them as if to combat sudden pain. A slight shudder passed over her entire body.

Then the hands lightly dropped. She relaxed easily into an attitude of comfort the physician had never seen before in this patient... In a bright unfamiliar voice that sparkled, the woman said, "Hi, there, Doc!"

Actually to meet the alter personalities of a multiple for the first time is both fascinating and disturbing. If the disparity between one personality and the next is great - as when an adult is replaced by a child, or a female by a male personality - one's first question may well be, "Is this real?" or "Is she (he) acting?"

This question has been posed throughout the history of psychiatry, and in specific cases one cannot definitively answer "Yes" or "No" immediately. Diagnostic issues aside, however (they are discussed elsewhere in this bulletin), it is interesting to note that what gradually impresses one meeting a true multiple is less the obvious differences between personalities and more the nonverbal, intangible dimensions of personality that are rich, subtle and difficult to fake. These qualities of being tend to be subconscious and are usually perceived subconsciously; it is the discrepancy between them from one personality to another in a multiple that eventually shakes one's sense of what is real and what is not.

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