Abstract

This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociated Identity Disorder. It investigates what the existence or presence of alter-identities in a client means, and critically analyzes the metaphysical basis of that existence or presence. This dissertation also has a major focus of concern with the therapeutic value of treating multiple personalities/dissociated identities as a disorder. ;An analysis of the metaphysics of the prevailing conception of multiplicity is shown to have fatal logical problems. Moreover, the conception of multiplicity as a disorder is shown to have destructive consequences for the typical client who manifests multiplicity and whose therapy is based on the disorder conception. These problems and consequences provide the motivation for replacement of the alter model with one that is free of logical problems and that does not treat multiplicity as a disorder. A model of multiplicity as a form of acting provides the replacement conception. A previous consideration of the acting approach in favor of the alter model was based both on a conception of acting as mimicry or faked feeling, and the idea of extreme dissociation experienced only as a psychopathology. This alter-actor comparison is referred to as the alter-actor distinction. However, this dissertation reconsiders the alter-actor distinction and shows how the alter model is contradicted by the testimony of some important actors, directors, and theoreticians and psychologists of acting. Moreover, consideration of how actors are counseled to protect themselves from the effects of extreme dissociation reveals that this advice is at odds with the advice and encouragement given to some MPD/DID clients about the emergence of multiple personalities/dissociated identities. ;This dissertation urges that the alter model of multiplicity/dissociated identity be replaced by the actor model. The actor model overcomes the logical deficiencies of the alter model, and has improved compatibility with, and a more accurate understanding of, the continuum of dissociative experience. The actor model will thereby serve clients more effectively and less dangerously