MULTIPLE
PERSONALITY
BEFORE "EVE"
Adam Crabtree, Ph.D.
Adam Crabtree, Ph.D., is training therapist and lecturer at
the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada.
This article is adapted from a paper delivered at the Fifth
Anniversary Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and
Multiple Personality: Training in Treatment, June 5, 1993.
For reprints write Adam Crabtree, Ph.D., Centre for Training
in Psychotherapy, 316 Dupont Street, Toronto, Ontario M5R
1V9, Canada.
ABSTRACT
The history of the diagnosis and treatment of multiple personality
during the 160-year period preceding The Three Faces of Eve
falls into two periods: the magnetic sleep period and the dissocia-
tion period. Using magnetic sleep techniques, early investigators
learned to control switching and trust the patient for guidance in
the treatment. Recognition of dissociation as a means of dealing
with traumatic material by forming multiple psychic centers led to
an effective psychotherapy for multiple personality disorder. The eti-
ological role of child abuse was not acknowledged until modern
times, but statistical evidence of sexual crimes against children in
late nineteenth-century France may provide a fruitful area of future
research. A scrutiny of historical cases raises questions about the
univocalness of the concept of multiple personality. It also reveals
data that have not yet been fully acknowledged by modern clini-
cians.
INTRODUCTION
`The psychiatric manifestation called multiple personality
has been extensively discussed. So too have the unicorn and
the centaur" (Thigpen & Cleckley, 1954, p.1). With these
words Doctors Thigpen and Cleckley opened the descrip-
tion of their treatment of a case of multiple personality that
would soon become world famous. "Eve," whom we today
know as Chris Costner Sizemore, was viewed by her thera-
pists in 1952 as an example of a very rare condition. When
one examines the scientific sources cited by Thigpen and
Cleckley, it is clear that only one investigator really made an
impression on them: Morton Prince, in his therapy of "Miss
Beauchamp." That they could have thought that treatment
of multiple personality had by and large not gone beyond
the stage of speculation about unicorns and centaurs, shows
how out of touch the psychiatric world of the 1950's was with
66
a rich therapeutic tradition.
Although that deficiency has been somewhat correct-
ed today, with historical essays by Greaves (1980, 1993),
Alvarado (1989, 1991), Bowman (1990), Hacking (1991a,
1991b, 1992), Fine (1988), Kenny (1981, 1986), Van der
Hart (1989), and myself (1985, 1986, 1992, 1993), to men-
tion some, an overall history of the treatment of multiple
personality disorder before the modern era - before "Eve"
- has yet to be written.
The case of "Eve" was a turning point in the modern
history of multiple personality. Not that the therapy carried
out by Thigpen and Cleckleywas innovative-it was not. The
true importance of the case lies in the fact that the book and
movie, The Three Faces of Eve, kindled the imagination of the
public and sparked curiosity about the nature of this mys-
terious disorder. That was the beginning of a renewal of
interest that suddenly burgeoned into full force in the late
1970s and early 1980s.
The case of "Eve" was the beginning of the modern era
of the study of multiple personality disorder. In this article
I would like to sketch the history of treatment of multiple
personality disorder before "Eve," with the hope that it will
make a contribution to a more complete history yet to be
written. This is not meant to be a full account-or even a
listing-of the multitude of cases that has occurred over the
160 years before 1952. Instead I would like to suggest a frame-
work for understanding the evolution of our knowledge and
treatment of multiple personality over that period, and relate
a few cases that illustrate aspects of that evolution. I would
also like to raise some questions that the study of this histo-
ry provokes.
THE ALTERNATE-CONSCIOUSNESS PARADIGM
The date of the first detailed report of a case of multi-
ple personality is 1791. An overview of the treatment of mul-
tiple personality from 1791 to 1952 suggests that there are
two distinct periods. The first lasted from 1'791 to 1880. During
that time the only coherent theory of multiple personality
was based on magnetic somnambulism or magnetic sleep.
For that reason I will call it the magnetic sleep period. The sec-
ond phase, from 1880 to 1952, began with a recognition of
dissociation and the fact that an individual may be divided
into any number of psychic centers arising as the psyche
attempts to deal with traumatic experiences.. I will call this
second period the dissociation period.
We have to go back two hundred years for the begin-
DISSOCIATION. Vol. VI. o, 1, March 1993
CRABTREE
p ing of this story. In 1784 a discovery occurred that not only
made it possible to recognize and treat multiple personali-
ty, it may even have made it possible for multiple personal-
ity to exist at all as a syndrome in our society (Crabtree 1985,
1993) . In the spring of 1784 the Marquis de Puysegur returned
home to his estate near Soissons in France. He was fresh
from a series of healing seminars taught in Paris by Franz
Anton Mesmer, a famous and controversial Viennese physi-
cian. Using Mesmer version of the laying on of the hands
called "animal magnetism," Puysegur needed only a few min-
utes to cure the toothaches of the daughter of his estate man-
ager and the wife of his watchman.
Buoyed up by this success, he turned to a more diffi-
cult task. One of his workers, Victor Race, was ill with con-
gestion of the lungs and fever. After moving his hands in
the prescribed manner over Victors bodyfor a few minutes,
Puysegur was surprised to find that the young man fell peace-
fully asleep. He soon discovered, however, that this was not
a normal sleep.Victor had slipped into an unusual state of
consciousness: he was awake while asleep.
While in this state Victor showed some peculiar quali-
ties. He was extremely suggestible and his personality
changed so that his usual rather slow witted wayswere replaced
by a remarkable brightness and mental agility. Not only that,
he seemed to be able to read Puysegur thoughts and was
apparently able to diagnose his own illness and those of other
people. He could also predict the course of the disease and
prescribe treatment, often with great success.
To top it off, Victor showed strange quirks of memory.
When he came out of this unusual state of consciousness,
he retained absolutely no memory of what had occurred.
Yet when in, the new state, he had complete knowledge of
both his waking state and every previous altered state.
Puysegur decided to call this newly discovered state "mag-
netic sleep" (after "animal magnetism"). He likened it to
naturally occurring sleepwalking or somnambulism, and so
also called it "magnetic somnambulism" (Puysegur 1784).
Magnetic sleep revealed a world of mental activity sep-
arated from normal awareness. It pointed to a second or
alternate consciousness that possesses distinct personal qual-
ities and a separate memory chain. What Puysegur had dis-
covered was that human beings are potentially divided and
that mental events can occur in which the normal consciousness
has no part. This state of divided consciousness became the
basis for all modern psychotherapies that accept the notion
of unconscious mental activity (Crabtree, 1993).
In fact, the discovery of magnetic sleep introduced a
whole new paradigm for understanding the way the human
psyche works. Before this time, if an individual suffered from
a mental disturbance or disorder, there were only two
paradigms available to explain it. Either the person was influ-
enced by some external entity (as in possession or sorcery)
or was suffering from some physical imbalance that affect-
ed the brain or nervous system. The explanation that posit-
ed an external intruding entity I call theintrusion paradigm.
The approach that supposes an organic cause I call the
ic paradigm. With the discovery of a second, alternate con-
sciousness, a new explanation suddenly emerged: the dis-
turbed person was being affected by mental processes out-
side his or her conscious awareness. This is what I call the
alternate-consciousness paradigm. With this in mind it is easier
to understand the first encounters with multiple personali-
ty and the treatment approaches that evolved.
MAGNETIC SLEEP PERIOD
It is intriguing that the first detailed account of multi-
ple personality was published just seven years after Puysegur
discovery of magnetic sleep. in 1791 Eberhard Gmelin wrote
about a twenty-one-year-old Stuttgart woman who suddenly
exhibited a personality that spoke perfect French and oth-
erwise behaved in the manner of a Frenchwoman of the
time. In that state she believed herself to be a native of Paris
who had emigrated to Stuttgart because of the French
Revolution. She would periodically enter these "French"
states and then return to her normal German state. In her
French state she spoke in elegant, idiomatic French, and
when she attempted to speak German it was labored and
hampered by a French accent. The two states had no direct
knowledge of each other, but in her French state she had
knowledge of all previous French states.
Gmelin immediately saw a parallel between these alter-
nating states and magnetic sleep. He treated the woman
French state as the counterpart of magnetic somnambulism,
and her German state as the counterpart of the normal wak-
ing state. Using magnetic procedures, he discovered that
when he employed techniques for putting an individual into
magnetic sleep, he was able to bring forward the French
state.When she was in her French state and Gtnelin applied
procedures devised to bring someone out of magnetic sleep,
the German state would come forward. In this way he was
able to control the switching.
Another aspect of Gmelin  treatment was similarly based
on experiences with magnetic sleep. I mentioned above that
while magnetized, Puysegur subject was apparently able to
diagnose his own illness, predict the course of the disease,
and prescribe remedies. Many magnetizers developed an
implicit trust in these utterances and looked to the ill indi-
vidual as the principle architect of the treatment. Gmelin
did the same thing, in that he asked the Stuttgart woman
how these "attacks," as he called them, of alternating per-
sonality would proceed. She predicted the onset and end-
ing of each attack with accuracy and also predicted when
the cure would take place. As it turned out, the alternation
of personality ceased at the time she said it would (Gmelin
1791). (Incidentally, the tendency of magnetizers to look to
the somnambulistic subject guidance in treatment puts
one in mind of the inner-self-helper phenomenon of mod-
ern therapy.)
During the period between 1791 and 1880, many cases
of dual personality maybe found in the literature and prac-
titioners of animal magnetism were very interested in them.
Puysegur himself speculated about the relationship between
the state of artificial somnambulism (or magnetic sleep) and
mental disorders in general, He successfully carried out a
remarkably sophisticated psychotherapy with a young boy
67
DlSSOCIATIOS, Vol. VI, No I. March l q l
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY BEFORE "EVE"
afflicted with memory problems and fits of rage, and came
to the conclusion that: " the insane, maniacs, the frenzied,
and mad people are simply...disordered somnambulists
(Puysegur, 1813, pp. 39-40)." Similarly, in 1846 John
Elliotson of University College Hospital in London stated:
"Mesmerism produces no phenomenon that does not occur
in nervous affections without mesmerism....It does produce
all the most wonderful phenomena of all affections...of the
nervous system (Elliotson, 1846, p. 157) ." Of course, the nat-
urally occurring disorder most easily related to magnetic
sleep was multiple personality disorder.
It should be noted that while those steeped in the mag-
netic tradition were busy drawing fruitful parallels between
magnetic sleep and multiple personality (e.g., Dewar (1823)
and Mayo (1845) , some who reported cases during this peri-
od did not make the connection, but were content to ven-
ture speculations about physiological causes, while attempt-
ing little treatment (e.g., Plumer (1860) and Jackson (1869) .
In 1842 the Manchester physician James Braid reject-
ed certain phenomena connected with animal magnetism
and renamed it "hypnotism." From 1860 on Braid's nomen-
clature enjoyed wide acceptance in France, and when in 1876
Eugene Azam wrote about his newly discovered case of dual
personality, he couched his explanation in terms of hyp-
notic states. He observed "Felida X " for three decades and
described her two alternating states in many articles and two
major works (Azam, 1887, 1893). Azam provided no treat-
mentforFelida, but noted that over the years, her "secondary
state," which had memories of both states, gradually gained
the upper hand, so that the "primary state" showed itself
only rarely. As the magnetizers before him, Azam described
Felida's two states as the counterparts of the waking state
and the state of artificial somnambulism. His work provid-
ed respectability among conventional medical colleagues
for both hypnotism and the study of multiple personality
disorder.
While treatment by magnetic sleep did enjoy some suc-
cess during this first period (witness the treatment of the
young "Estelle" by Dr. Charles Antoine Despine (1838; also
Fine, 1988), a fully satisfactory treatment approach was not
yet in place. Part of the problem was an imperfection in the
theory. While the concept of an alternate consciousness that
could be reached in magnetic sleep was a crucial step for-
ward, it was lacking in two ways. First, although it very nice-
ly explained dual personality, it could not easily account for
multiple personalities. Second, it did not specify a precipi-
tating cause of the disorder.
DISSOCIATION PERIOD
This brings us to the second great period in the treat-
ment of multiple personality disorder before "Eve": the dis-
sociation period. This period is characterized by two insights.
The first is an awareness of dissociation and the fact that the
psyche is capable of partitioning off segments of experience.
The second is the discovery that dissociation often occurs
in response to trauma, and that in the process any number
of psychic centers may be formed. These insights provided
the basis for understanding how it is possible to have multi-
ple personalities and for pinpointing what causes the for-
mation of the personalities.
Although it was Pierre Janet who, in the 1880 ' s, devel-
oped the notion of dissociation as a mature psychological
concept, awareness of dissociative phenomena preceded him
by many decades. The concept of alienated parts of the psy-
che was alluded to by several magnetizers. August Roullier
(181'7) and Friedrich Fischer (1859) noted in some som-
nambulists a dissociated voice phenomenon that they iden-
tified as an external projection of a part of the psyche. Friedrich
von Strombeck 's somnambulist `Julie" hallucinated a help-
ful, advising figure whom she came to recognize as an exter-
nalized part of herself (Strombeck, 1814). Then there was
the bizarre case reported by William James (1889) ofawoman
whose right arm became completely split off from her ordi-
nary consciousness and functioned as a kindly guardian to
the rest of the body. These and many other cases hinted that
parts of the psyche could be separated off and experienced
as alien to the normal self.
Then in the early 1880s the treatment of a case of male
multiple personality was published that opened new vistas.
Louis Vive was twenty-two years old when he came under
treatment by Drs. Bourru and Burnt, professors at the med-
ical school of Rochefort, France. Louis exhibited six distinct
personalities, each with its own set of muscle contractions
and anesthesias, and each with its individual group of mem-
ories. Each personalitywas tied to a particular period of Louis's
life and held memories only for that period, except for one
personalitywhose memories overlapped with four of the oth-
ers. Personality 1 was violent and unruly. Personalities 2 and
3 were quiet and well educated. Personality 4 was shy, child-
like in speech, and had the skill of a tailor but little educa-
tion. Personality 5 was obedient, boyish and well educated.
Personality 6 was the best balanced of them all, with a decent
character, moderate education, good physical strength, and
a memory for nearly all the events of Louis ' s life.
Bourru and Burot, who described their treatment in a
landmark book called Variations de la personnalite (1888) , used
hypnotic regression to return Louis to the various periods
of his past. In this way they were able to tie specific person-
alities to specific memories. Then they could control switch-
ing of personalities by inducing the memories of the dif-
ferent time periods. They considered this discovery to be of
great importance, because it allowed retrieval and restora-
tion of the blocked memories that caused the formation of
each personality.
Bourru and Buret called Louis Vive's states "variations
of personality," seeing them as successive trance-like states.
Their view was influenced by the great theorist of hypno-
tism, Hippolyte Bernheim, who noted that hypnotic states
were merely special manifestations of altered states that peo-
ple go into all the time. In aframework that makes one think
of modern ideas about state dependent memory, Bernheim
said that these various states become tied to memories of
the specific events that occurred in those states. Bourru and
Burot viewed Louis Vive's personalities as successive hyp-
noid states of one individual, successive variations of one
68
DISSOCIATION. Cn1.1T. \o. I. Ilarrh 1113
CRABTREE
personality.
Pierre Janet went a step beyond. Working with hyster-
ics he developed the concept of "dissociation," demonstrating
that some individuals can form several psychic centers, each
of which carries its own personal traits and may initiate actions
(Janet 1887). Janet called these dissociated centers " per-
sonalities " and considered them not merely successive vari-
ations of the personality, as posited by Bourru and Burot,
but psychic centers that coexist, each thinking and reacting
simultaneously with the others. Janet's work concentrated
on hysterics, where the personalities coexist and operate on
subconscious levels, only occasionally taking over from the
normal consciousness in hypnosis or automatic writing. He
discovered that the subconscious personalities of the hys-
teric were constructed in response to traumatic events that
formed subconscious fixed ideas that became the seeds of
the new personalities. As it turned out, Janet's system was
equally effective for understanding and treating multiple
personality disorder, in which the various personalities spon-
taneously emerge to interact with the world.
With Janet's work, the potentials of the alternate-con-
sciousness paradigm were fully revealed. His alternate-con-
sciousness psychotherapy served as the basis for the effec-
tive diagnosis and treatment of a variety of psychological
disorders. From here on the dissociation/trauma model of
psychotherapy is established and begins to show up in descrip-
tions of cases of multiple personality.
Let me add in passing that the momentum of the alter-
nate-consciousness paradigm, having provided an effective
framework for explaining functional mental disorders in gen-
eral and dissociative disorders in particular, lost ground with
the rise of psychoanalysis. Valuable insights into dissociation
and therapeutic integration were acknowledged by Breuer
but for the most part ignored by Freud. For that reason, in
the early decades psychoanalysts were not very interested in
or adept at treating multiple personality disorder, a fact point-
ed out both by contemporaries (e.g. Hart 1926) and recent
writers (e.g., Bliss 1986). I have taken up this issue at more
length elsewhere (Crabtree, 1986, in press).
TREATMENT
Returning now to treatment of multiple personality, a
study of cases reported in the dissociation period reveals
that, as in the magnetic sleep period, some cases were mere-
ly observed, with no attempt to provide treatment for exam-
ple Felida X and Molly Fancher the "Brooklyn Enigma" (Dailey,
1894). However, many did attempt psychotherapy. It is not
possible to do justice to these interesting cases. It will have
to suffice to mention two: the "Miss Beauchamp " case of
Morton Prince and the "Doris Fischer" case of Walter
Franklin Prince.
Morton Prince, founding editor of the Journal of
Almormal Psychology, through his own work and articles pub-
lished in his journal, contributed greatly to our understanding
of the nature of dissociation. His "Miss Beauchamp" case of
multiple personality was first mentioned in the Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Researchin 1901 and then published
in book form in 1905 as The Dissociation of a Personality . "Miss
Beauchamp" (real name Clara Norton Fowler) had three
principal personalities. There was BI, called the "saint," who
was meek, religious, and dependent. Then there was BIV,
called the "woman" and the "realist," who was strong, quick
to anger, and self reliant. The third personality was "Sally,"
mischievous, breezy, and irresponsible. Sally was always
coconscious with the other personalities and, according to
Prince, was made up of fragments repressed from the main
consciousness during childhood. Prince considered Sally to
be a subconscious personality present from infancywho only
took executive charge of the body much later in life. BI, the
saint, was formed to "save" her mother from illness and unhap-
piness. BIV embodied personal qualities that were unac-
ceptable to BI and emerged for the first time in the course
of therapy.
Prince's treatment plan was simple: get BI and BIV to
merge, and then force Sally back into the subconsciouswhere
she belonged. This would result in the "real" Miss Beauchamp
and a completely unified life. By his own standards Prince
was successful in his treatment and, writing more than twen-
ty years later, claimed that the result was permanent and
that Miss Beauchamp, like the princess in the fairy tale, was
married and "lived happily ever afterward" (M. Prince, 1929,
p. 208) .
Walter Franklin Prince (no relation to Morton Prince)
published a summary account of his therapy with Doris Fischer
twelve years after Morton Prince's case study, and he pub-
lished it in Morton Prince ' s journal (W. F. Prince, 1917).
This article was preceded by a mammoth thirteen-hundred
page treatise on Doris and her treatment (Prince & Hyslop
1915) and followed by another one thousand pages of psy-
chical experiments done in connection with her case (Hyslop,
1917; W. F. Prince, 1923). This makes Doris Fischer by far
the most massively documented multiple personality to date.
Doris had five personalities in all. The first was Real
Doris, the "primary personality" who had disappeared for
years at a time because of traumatic shocks. Real Doris was
amiable and self-reliant. The second was Sick Doris, a per-
sonality without affect or initiative. The third personality was
Margaret, a lively, mischievous sprite, somewhat reminiscent
of Morton Prince's Sally. Like Sally, Margaret was cocon-
sciouswith the other personalities. The fourth, Sleeping Real
Doris, was actually a somnambulistic personality who appeared
only when Doris was asleep. The most puzzling personality
was called Sleeping Margaret. She was not, in fact, Margaret
asleep, but a personality whose function was to protect Doris
against harm and aid Prince in the conduct of his therapy
(in the tradition of the inner healer of magnetic practitioners
and the inner-self-helper of modern times). Interestingly,
Sleeping Margaret also claimed to be a spirit and not a part
of Doris (Prince & Hyslop, 1915, p. 14).
Doris had been encouraged in her ability to dissociate
by her mother who loved to play what she called the "sup-
posing" game with her daughter. The hours they spent togeth-
er in shared fantasy, creating imagined adventures, height-
ened what seemed to be an unusual ability to dissociate.
The relationship between multiple personality disor-
69
DISSOC1:1T1{)N. 1'1)1. 1'1, No. 1, ]larch 1993
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY BEFORE "EVE"
der and childhood trauma is set out quite clearly in the course
of Doris 's treatment. Doris 's father was a selfish and violent
man who had a severe problem with alcohol. The first for-
mation of an alter took place as a result of violence that he
perpetrated on the three-year-old Doris. His violence was
extreme and continued until Doris was twenty-two. The ques-
tion of possible sexual abuse by the father cannot be con-
firmed or disconfirmed from the information given. Doris
did, however, have a powerful aversion to being touched by
anyone, even her beloved mother.
Walter Franklin Prince's approach to treatmentwas rem-
iniscent of that of Morton Prince, with a few original twists
of his own. Doris actually lived with Prince and his wife for
most of the duration of the treatment, and Prince was able
to make use of the unique therapeutic opportunities that
arose. It became clear early on that hypnotism was con-
traindicated because of the perturbation it caused and, as it
turned out, it was not necessary. Prince was able to use Real
Doris ' s periods of sleep to implant suggestions to quiet her
fears and induce helpful dreams. With the cooperation of
Sleeping Margaret, Prince took measures that weakened Sick
Doris and Margaret, while strengthening Real Doris. As Sick
Doris and Margaret faded, they also regressed in age and
lost more and more of their memories, which were trans-
ferred to Real Doris. As treatment progressed, Sleeping
Margaret began to say that she was not needed as much any
more and began to be absent for periods, apparently spend-
ing more and more time on "the other side" (the spirit world),
where she claimed to be from. Finally, Real Doris attained
continua] consciousness, and the other personalities passed
from sight, except for Sleeping Margaret, who would occa-
sionally put in an appearance for a few minutes in the evening
part of sleep.
SEXUAL ABUSE
Before closing this rapid sketch of the treatment of
multiple personality before Eve, I would like to refer to a
case that more directly raises the issue of sexual abuse. In
1926 the American psychologist Henry Herbert Goddard
published adescription of treatment carried out with a Bernice
R., whom he diagnosed as having multiple personality
(Goddard, 1926). Goddard's plan was to use hypnotism to
try to fuse her two principal personalities. His approach was
to put her in the trance in one personality and awaken her
in the other. In the process Goddard also did a great deal
of abreactive work with traumatic memories. Among them
were Bernice's clear and persistent recollections of incest
with her father. Goddard treated those memories as hallu-
cinations, giving as his reason the fact that the incestuous
acts purportedly happened at age fourteen but had not been
mentioned until she was nineteen and a half. This indicates
that Goddard was not really well acquainted with the nature
of dissociation, and that he was stuck within widely held con-
temporary notions of hysterical sexual hallucination.
Goddard was not the first to allude to sexual abuse in
the treatment of multiple personality disorder (e.g., Dewar,
1823). Nevertheless, the connection between childhood sex-
70
ual abuse and multiple personality was not clearly made until
the modern era. Even so, certain preliminary speculations
may be offered regarding the role of childhood sexual abuse
in the formation of multiple personality disorder in early
times. For that let us return to the era of Pierre Janet.
It is impossible to know at this distance i n time how
many of the cases of hysteria treated by Janet or what por-
tion of the hundreds of Charcot's hysterics at the Salpetriere
hospital were in fact multiples. In reading the case litera-
ture one suspects that MPD was fairly common in this patient
population. But, for lack of information in the case materi-
al, if there is some strong relationship between MPD and sex-
ual abuse, corroborating evidence will have to be obtained
from another quarter.
That evidence may in fact be available. The data to
which I refer are contemporary statistics about individuals
charged with sexual crimes against children. Official statis-
tics of the government of France show that between 1860
and 1890 there were 22,000 sexual crimes committed against
children less than thirteen years old-this through a peri-
od when the population of France was around 37,000,000
(Thoinot, 1911; see also Tardieu, 1878). It seems to me that
when one considers that these statistics refer to actual crimes
brought to trial at a time when there was little legal sensi-
tivity to children, one can extrapolate a very high incidence
of childhood sexual abuse.
Could the apparently high incidence of childhood sex-
ual abuse in France account for the large numbers of hys-
terics available for study and observation during this peri-
od? And could this also indicate a high incidence of MPD?
These questions await a much more thorough study. Such
a study might compare French statistics to those of England,
where the incidence of hysteria in the same period seems
much lower (as indicated, for example, by F.W.H. Myers's
comment directed to Janet (Myers, 1903) that in England
he could find no hysterics to study and so had to concen-
trate on dissociative phenomena produced by normal indi-
viduals in automatic writing).
QUESTIONS ARISING
If one looks closely at accounts of multiple personali-
ty over the past two centuries, certain questions come to
mind. They can be summed up under one heading: is mul-
tiple personality a univocal concept?
In 1899 Theodore Hyslop wrote an article on "double
consciousness" in which he distinguished seven types: 1) cases
occurring in early life and preceded by night terrors, som-
nambulism, or both; 2) cases in which the abnormal state is
preceded by profound sleep, and in which the normal state
is only again reached after prolonged sleep; 3) cases result-
ing from accident injury or disease; 4) epileptiform cases;
5) insane cases; 6) hysterical anaesthetic cases; 7) cases involv-
ing possession. Hyslop's categorization seems to me to con-
form very well to the data, and I would like to use it as a
framework for discussion.
Types 1 and 6 combined seem to very well cover cases
that are now considered to be typical of multiple personal-
DISSOCIATION, Cal. VI, \n. I. Mardi 1993
CRABTREE
ity disorder. Type 2 is represented by the famous Mary Reynolds
case (Mitchill 1816, Plumer 1860). Here the first onset waspreceded by a severe convulsion and a long period of uncon-
sciousness; later shifts between the two states occurred after
long periods of sleep from which she could not be awak-
ened. Type 3 is exemplified by the case of Hanna described
by Boris Sidis (1905). In this instance the alteration began
with a blow on the head and led to a secondary personality
that was "deprived of most of his learned knowledge" and
had to be reeducated in perception, speaking, eating, and
social interaction. After a while the secondary personality
was able to function competently. The two personalities were
eventually merged. Other cases of this type were described
by McCormack (1883), Dailey (1894), and Gilbert (1902).
A Type 4 case is described by Trowbridge (1891). The case
of Sorgel (Feuerbach, 1846) illustrates Type 5. The "Doris
Fischer" case is an example of Type 7.
Hyslop 's distinction of types is based on the present-
ing symptoms. Even though the literature does not contain
enough information to reach reliable conclusions about caus-
es, a careful reading of the old cases of types 1-6 makes it
difficult to believe that we are dealing with a single syndrome.
Type 7 cases create further puzzlement. For purposes
of this discussion I would like to expand this category to
include cases involving ostensible past life personalities. And
at this point we return to our point of departure-to "Eve."
In her recent book, A Mind of My Own (1989), Chris
Sizemore relates the story of her final healing from multi-
ple personality disorder under the guidance of Dr. Tony
Tsitos. Since the integration of her twenty-four personali-
ties, she has written two books (Sizemore, 1977, 1989), inves-
tigated the role of art in the healing process, promoted the
cause of therapy by speaking on behalf of the Mental Health
Association, and been the recipient of a number of awards.
In AMind of My Ownshe makes this startling statement: "Despite
authorities' claims to the contrary, my former alters were
not fragments of my birth personality. They were entities,
whole in their own rights, who coexisted with my birth per-
sonality before I was born. They were not me, but they remain
intrinsically related to what it means to be me (p. 211)."
What are these entities? Past-life personalities.
Chris Sizemore is not unique among multiples in
reporting that they experience some of their alters as past-
life personalities. A number of therapists have informed me
of this phenomenon in their patients. When these data are
combined with reported instances of ostensible possession
in connection with multiple personality disorder (see
Crabtree, 1992) , we are confronted with a great many Type
7 cases. This information seems to require more attention
than it has so far received in clinical literature.
How often have those of us who read the old cases wished
that the authors had asked more, gone deeper, given us greater
detail. On the one hand, it simply did not occur to many
investigators to probe into areas thatwe now consider impor-
tant. On the other, some exercised a reflexive censorship,
so that information presented by the patient was deliber-
ately omitted on the basis of the author's prejudgment. An
example of this is Goddard whose patient consistently spoke
of incest with her father. He did not even mention that fact
in his book about the case (Goddard, 1927) , and he acknowl-
edged it in a dismissive way in his technical paper (Goddard,
1926). It is important that we do not repeat the mistakes of
past researchers by omitting to mention material brought
forward by patients because we prejudge its significance. Today
this is perhaps most likely to occur in regard to Type 7 phe-
nomena.
Chris Sizemore remarks (personal communication, 1993)
that there has been no response from clinicians nor review-
ers to her statement that she experienced her personalities
as past-life personalities. That is, to say the least, surprising.
Whether one believes in the reality of past-life personalities
or not, her report must be worthy of some kind of acknowl-
edgement. Why would her description be ignored?
In 1991 Colin Ross drew our attention to a phe-
nomenon he called the "cultural dissociation barrier," erect-
ed by a society or culture to keep unacceptable "part selves"
from access by the "executive self." Ross identifies three dis-
sociated part selves in our culture at large: 1. the receiv-
er/transmitter for extrasensory and paranormal experiences,
2. programs responsible for running the physical body, and
3.the deep intuitive consciousness. Type 7 multiplicity expe-
riences clearly fall under dissociated part self 1. I believe that
clinicians working with multiple personality disorder have
to make a special effort to refrain from the cultural dissoci-
ation that is going on all around them. That effort involves
acknowledging reported experiences that are not broadly
accepted by our society.
CONCLUSION
Treatment of multiple personality disorder before
"Eve" took place in the context of a remarkably sophisticat-
ed psychotherapeutic tradition arising from the alternate-
consciousness paradigm. Far from pursuing the psycholog-
ical equivalents of unicorns and centaurs, as Thigpen and
Cleckley thought, therapists of that 160-year period laid solid
groundwork for the renewed and deepened knowledge of
multiple personality that we enjoy today.
Although modern clinical practice tends to view mul-
tiple personality disorder as a single syndrome, a study of
the history of the past two hundred years and a scrutiny of
the data of the consulting room today raises questions about
that perception. Those questions may be disconcerting for
clinicians, since they threaten to introduce further compli-
cations into an already complex situation. Nevertheless, treat-
ment of multiple personality will profit from any investiga-
tion that truly respects the data. 
REFERENCES
Alvarado,C. S. (1989). Dissociation and state-specific psychophys-
iology during the nineteenth century. DISSOCIATION 11(3), 160-
168.
Alvarado, C. S. (1991). Iatrogenesis and dissociation: A historical
note. DISSOCIATION,IV(1), 36-38.
71
DISSOCIATION, Vol. VI, No. 1, March 1993
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY BEFORE "EVE"
Azam, E. (1876). Amnesic periodique ou dedoublement de la vie.
Annales medico-psychologiques, 16,5-35.
Azam, E. (1887) . Hypnotisme,double conscience, et alterations de la per-
sonnalite.Paris:J. B. Bailliere.
Azam, E. (1893). Hypnotisme et double conscience; origine de leur etude
et divers travaux sur des sujets analogues. Felix Alcan.
Bliss, E. (1986) .Multiple personality, allied disorders, and hypnosis.New
York: Oxford University Press.
Bowman, E. (1990). Adolescent multiple personality disorder in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, DISSOCIATION,
179-187.
Braid, J. (1842). Satanic agency and mesmerism reviewed.
Sims and Dinham, Galt and Anderson.
Crabtree, A. (1985). Mesmerism, divided consciousness, and mul-
tiple personality. In Franz Anton Mesmer and die Geschichte des
Mesmerismus, Heinz Schott. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Crabtree, A. (1986). Explanations of dissociation in the first half
of the twentieth century. In" Quen (Ed.), Split minds/split brains.
New York: New York University Press.
Crabtree, A. (1992). Dissociation and memory: A two-hundred year
perspective. DISSOCIATION,IV(3), 150-I54.
Crabtree, A. (in press). From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic sleep and the
roots of psychological healing.New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dailey, A. H. (1894). MollieFancher, the Brooklyn enigma. An authen-
tic statementoffacts in the life of MaryJ. Fancher, the psychological mar-
vel of the nineteenth century.
Dewar, H. (1823). Report on a communication from Dr. Dyce.
Transactions of the Royal Society Edinburgh,
Elliotson, J. (1846). Instances of double states of consciousness
independent of mesmerism. Zoist, 4,157-87.
Feuerbach, P. von. (1846). In Duff Gordon (trans.), Criminal tri-
als. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Fischer, F. (1859). Vols. I-3. Basel: Schweighauser.
Fine, C. G. (1988). The work of Antoine Despine: The first scien-
tific report on the diagnosis and treatment of a child with multi-
ple personality disorder. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,31,
32-39.
Gilbert, J. A. (1902). A case of multiple personality. The Medical
Record (Nero York), 62,207-211.
Gmelin, E. (1791). MaterialenfirdieAnthropologie,Vol. 1. Tubingen:
Cotta.
Goddard, H.H. (1926). A case of dual personality. Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology,
Goddard, H.H. (1927). Two souls in one body? A case of dual person-
ality.New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company.
Goettman, C., Greaves, G., & Coons, P. (1991). Multiple personali-
ty:1791-1990: A bibliography. B. Greaves, Ph.D, P.C.
Greaves, G. (1980) . Multiple personality: 165 years after Mary
Reynolds, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.168, 577-596.
Greaves,G. (1993). A history of multiple personality. In R.P. Kluft
& C .G. Fine (Eds.), Clinical perspectives on multiple personality.
Washington DC: American Psychiatric Press.
Hacking, 1. (1991a). Double consciousness in Britain: I815-1875.
DISSOCIATION, IV (3) , 134-146.
Hacking, 1. (1991b). Two souls in one body. Critical Inquiry, 17,
838-867.
Hacking, I. (1992). Multiple personality and its hosts. History ofthe
Human Sciences, 5 (2), 3-31.
Hart, B. (1926). The conception of dissociation. British Journal of
MedicalPsychology,
Hyslop, James. (1917). The Doris case of multiple personality,
Proceedings the American Society for Psychical Research, II,
Hyslop, T. B. (1899). On "double consciousness." British Medical
Journal, Sept. 23, 1899, 782-786.
Jackson, S. (1869). On consciousness and cases of so-called dou-
ble consciousness. American Journal of the Medical Sciences,
James, W. (1889). Notes on automatic writing. Proceedingsof the
(Old) American Society for Psychical Research,
Janet, P. (1887). L'anesthesie systematisee et la dissociation des
phenomenes psychologiques. Revuephilosophique,23, 449-72.
Kenny, M. G. (1981). Multiple personality and spirit possession.
Psychiatry,44, 337-358.
Kenny, M. G. (1986). The passion of Ansel Bourne: Multiple personal-
ity inAmerican culture.
Mayo, T. (1845). Case of double consciousness. London Medical
Gazette, 36,1202-1203.
McCormack, J. N. (1883). Double identity after trepanning. The
Medical Record (New York),
Mitchill, S.L. (1816). A double consciousness, or a duality of per-
son in the same individual. Medical Repository, 3,
Myers, F. W. H. (1903). Human personality and its survival of bodily
death, (2 vols.). London: Longmans, Green.
Plumer, W.S. (1860). Mary Reynolds: A case of double conscious-
ness. Harpers New Monthly Magazine,
Prince, M. (1901). The development and geneology of the misses
Beauchamp. Proceedings of the Society forPsychic Research, 15, 466.483.
Prince, M. (1905). The dissociation of a personality: A biographical study
in abnormal psychology.
72
DISSOCIATION, Vol. VI, No.1,p lo 190
CRABTREE
Prince, M. (1929). Clinical and experimental studies in personality.
Cambridge: Sci-Art Publishers.
Prince, W.F. (1916). The Doris case of multiple personality.
Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research,10, 701-1419.
Prince, W.F. (1917). The Doris case of quintuple personality.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology,11, 73-122.
Prince, W.F. (1923) . The mother of Doris.
Society for Research,17, 1-216.
Prince, W.F., Hyslop, J. (1915). The Doris case of multiple per-
sonality,Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research,
700.
Puysegur, A. Marquis de. (1784). Memoires pour servir t'histoire et
l'etablissement du magnetisme animal.
Puysegur, A. Marquis de. (1813). Appel aux savans obseruateurs du
dix-neutrieme siccle, de la decision portee par leurs predecesseurs contre le
magnetisme; continuation du journal du traitement du jeune Hebert; et
fin du traitement du jeune Hebert.Paris: J. G. Dentu.
Ross, C. (1991). The dissociated executive self and the cultural dis-
sociation barrier, DISSOCIATION, IV(1), 55-61.
Roullier, A. (1817). Exposition physiologique des phenomenes du mag-
netisme animal et du somnambulisme.
Sizemore, C.C. Patillo, E.S. (1977).I'm Eve.Garden City, New York:
Doubleday.
Sizemore, C.C. (1989) .A mindofmy own.New York: William Morrow.
Sizemore, Chris Costner. (1993). Personal communication.
Strombeck, F.K.von {1814). Histoire de la guerison d'une jeune per-
sonne, par le magnitisme animal, produit par la nature elle-mime.
Librairie Greque, Latine, Allemande.
Tardieu, A. (1878). Etude medico-legale sur les attentats aux moeurs
(seventh edition). Paris: J. B. Baiiliere.
Thigpen, C.H., Cleckley, H. (1954). A case of multiple person-
ality,Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
Thigpen, C.H., Clecley, H. (1957). The three faces of eve.
York: McGraw-Hill.
Thoinot, L. (1911). In A. W. Weyase (trans.), Medicolegal aspects of
moral offenses.
Trowbridge, G. R. (1891). A case of epilepsy with double con-
sciousness. 58, 201-202.
Van der Hart, O., Friedman, B. (1989) . A reader guide to Pierre
Janet on dissociation: A neglected intellectual heritage, DISSOCIA-
TION,I1(1), 3-16.
73
DISSOCIATION, Vol. t1. So, 1. liarcli 19113