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Multiple Personality and Personality

Little_Sticks

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Aug 19, 2009
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1,358
I have recently discovered a theory about personality that suggests we have a core personality (similar to MBTI) that we received at birth, but that which is NOT necessarily evident or obvious in a person, except at infancy. The idea is that the core personality devises ways to wear a different persona and that it is, more or less, a partly unconscious endeavor. Now MBTI suggests to do so means to exert more energy than needed because we have one personality that is the only minimal-energy-viable personality. I believe this is partly true; I believe if a person exerts the initial inertia of energy needed to be another type that once done will require minimal energy to use at will, it becomes a preference without the person being aware unless isolated and made to reflect on their identity. The idea uses Jung's idea of archetypes in place of personality. I think this is a correct approach. And I think the only problem anyone will have with this is supposed evidence of others failing to change their personality and ending up reverting back to a state already familiar or losing their (sometimes temporarily) sanity. This can happen for two reasons: not putting forth the appropriate energy or having too many roadblocks put in their cognitive way for it to be a worthwhile endeavor (thus the retreat). But I will discuss this below.

But what I want to get at now then is what has been covertly attacking the idea of personality on this board - multiple personalities. It seems what we really have here is a conflict between a belief in one personality and a belief in multiple personalities. Jung remarked that to have no personality was, for the most part, an unhealthy state to be so susceptible to other personalities and removed from a defined self to interact with the world in. If we take this to be true, then what can we say about the inverse? If someone has all or many of the personalities at their disposal, then what better way to interact with the world? Of course, this assumes quite a lot of initial building-energy and growth on an individuals part, but are we doing ourselves justice by eliminating the possibility?

But back with the idea of a person changing a personality, let us consider first those that fail. We can look at the homeless guy on the street walking back and forth talking to himself or the seemingly-psychotic patient in a mental ward going back and forth between different identities and playing with them, perhaps in search of finding one that can be used to align everything and help them interact well with their environment, and we can assume that having more than one personality is dangerous, can leave someone to such confusion and indecision that they can not interact, that having more than one personality means to be fragmented. But I propose that those individuals are fragmented because they never reached a personality state that defended them from great stress or that satisfied their needs with the world; they are (temporarily) broken, and for perfect reasoning, like a neglected now-inoperable machine that never received its maintenance services, and I suggest that those who have successfully integrated multiple personalities to mold many, instead of one, personality mask, are quite healthy and quite reasonable in attacking the idea of MBTI.

Discuss??
 

Katsuni

Priestess Of Syrinx
Joined
Aug 22, 2009
Messages
1,238
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
3w4?
I've kind of known that for awhile, but not to the extent listed there, or that clearly.

Thing is that MBTI can only measure yeur PREFERENCE of which type yeu "prefer" the most, or at least which one yeu aspire to be.

Chances are I'm probably about 50/50 F/T naturally, but have developed T more over the years, with alot of emphasis on Ti.

Anyways, the idea is that that there may be different types residing within one individual is fully plausible in many cases. If there's a discrepancy between the innate and cultivated personality types, it could possibly cause enough of a division to show two separate halves at the same time. That isn't neccesarily how it works all the time, but it may explain at least some rare cases.

Now, does that mean that multiple personalities is a bad thing? Not necessarily, though it is kinda strange admittedly, which would probably lead many to suggest unhealthy by default. Considering the cases are exceedingly rare and many professionals don't agree with it as even being a valid diagnosis still, it can be hard to test.

Regardless, each personality type in MBTI has its' own strengths and weaknesses, and the type yeu are at birth is molded by experience along the way, and can, in some cases, change dramatically from the original starting position. Having two different ones, or more, to rely on as the situation dictates isn't all that bad, but it could become confusing for others when there's no real way to tell which one is truly surfaced at any one time.

I've never seen anyone successfully integrate multiple personalities at once... in fact I'm only aware of the one individual I've known who's had that case in the first place, and that wasn't quite in a traditional sense either, so I have a rather limited scope of experience to work with in saying much more than I have.

I'd like to discuss further though, maybe someone'll say something I can go on about further XD
 

uumlau

Happy Dancer
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Messages
5,517
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INTJ
Enneagram
953
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I find that there is both a flexible and a nearly inflexible approach to MBTI. It is obvious that one's MBTI type is usually an imprecise description of a personality. One can appear to be both INTP and INTJ, for example, and it takes a lot of understanding to know which one is before determining between the two. The flexible and inflexible MBTI philosophies have different approaches to such conundrums. The flexible approach is simpler, but less useful: that one develops all sorts of different personality traits, in arbitrary proportions, and at best, one's "real" type is the one that best matches one's predominant traits. The truly inflexible approach is false, on its face, since that would be to insist that a person just has one set of MBTI traits or another. Thus instead one will still try to stick with the 16 types, but then, a la Beebe and many others, one will characterize "shadow functions" and "tertiary functions" and so on, such that eventually all aspects of the other types play a role in one's primary type: that there is an ordering to the Jungian functions and that only 16 such orderings are possible. My main problem with the latter approach is that it still insists that there are only 16 types, but it adds complexity of such a degree that it becomes unfalsifiable. (The flexible approach is more obviously unfalsifiable.)

The merits of each approach are beside the point, however. Multiple personality disorder is quite real, but is not described by MBTI, though one may use MBTI as a descriptive tool to describe the "personalities."

MPD appears to me to be (having experienced one such individual in great detail) a case in which one has taken the various "voices" in one's head (which argue different perspectives, or play roles in understanding/predicting real life interactions, and so on, in a normal, healthy way), and has come to understand them as being real entities in their own right. Normally, such voices are just "sock puppets" for one's own amusement/understanding, and will say whatever you want them to say, but you have internal rules for how they talk/argue. When they become "real", and one is convinced that each is "another self," then they can switch themselves out, and tend to struggle for power. The internal world becomes extremely complex: there are even personalities that don't normally come out, but play a significant role in deciding which personality comes out, there are other personalities that have various roles in taking care of other matters, or even taking care of the needs of still other personalities, all the while not actually surfacing except in rare intervals.

However, that is just my reporting 2nd-hand of one MPD individual's perspective. From my personal perspective, the reason it's a disorder is not that one has all of these voices or roles, but because the MPD individual uses the other personalities to dissociate from reality and avoid personal responsibility, usually to avoid whatever one perceives as a painful experience. An alcoholic or drug user will use chemicals to achieve a similar effect, but the MPD gets there just by adopting a different personality. Also, the MPD does not do this in a useful way: the switching is mostly done to avoid pain, and is quite random - it is not like a Swiss army knife from which one chooses the most appropriate personality.

One can use MBTI and Jungian functions to describe these alternate personalities, but neither MBTI or Jung actually explain or even approach explaining this particular mental disorder, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.
 

YellowXb

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Nov 3, 2017
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1
I don't know if this is rare, but I believe that I am experiencing at least two personalities in my life. Specifically, I can relate to both the ENTJ type and INFP type. Because they are so different, so it's relatively easier for me to spot these two different perspectives in play for my life, however, it's also because they are so different, integrating them seems not be a practical solution. I am not crazy or out-of-control, because I've been aware and managing the situation, but I do feel discouraged when trying to find my true direction and happiness in life. Specifically, with all my decisions and experiences in life, there is always a part of me feeling dissatisfied or sometimes even suppressed, and I haven't figure out a way that can make both of my quiet different personalities happy. So any professional advice, suggestion, or discussion?
Thank you.
Btw, English is not my first language, so if my wording or writing is a little bit off, it's not because that I am crazy, it's just language barrier, lol.
 

Octandempus

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Just made a profile since I came across this on a search.

I'm 26 and have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder though it isn't a personality disorder. I myself am part of a system that has a few others. I personally have long held an interest in fascination in psychology, neurology, typology, etc so I have devoted a lot of personal time to learning what I could. I have many alters as part of my system and certainly each alter is distinct and has their own personality type. I am ESTJ myself and not the original, or personality born into the body. The original is an INFP. There is also another alter who is commonly out who is an ISTJ though has depersonalization disorder and is very 'flat'. I feel that in knowing that one body can have such distinct brain patterns and personalities points to the realization that there is little that holds us back but ourselves in terms of our growth and development in MBTI. When I first came into existence I often had trouble with intuition and being able to know what I was feeling or what others were feeling. I had an unwillingness to try anything new as I thought what was already existent was good enough. I worked on myself and at this stage in my life I'd say I'm very well-rounded. I'd be happy to answer any questions pertaining to DID and MBTI.

And alter integrations can happen though it is rarely a 'fix' or cure to the underline problem. There were two alters that were part of our system that merged out of choice. It worked well for them but often it doesn't help anything if not create more hostility within the system.
 

Lib

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Just made a profile since I came across this on a search.

I'm 26 and have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder though it isn't a personality disorder. I myself am part of a system that has a few others. I personally have long held an interest in fascination in psychology, neurology, typology, etc so I have devoted a lot of personal time to learning what I could. I have many alters as part of my system and certainly each alter is distinct and has their own personality type. I am ESTJ myself and not the original, or personality born into the body. The original is an INFP. There is also another alter who is commonly out who is an ISTJ though has depersonalization disorder and is very 'flat'. I feel that in knowing that one body can have such distinct brain patterns and personalities points to the realization that there is little that holds us back but ourselves in terms of our growth and development in MBTI. When I first came into existence I often had trouble with intuition and being able to know what I was feeling or what others were feeling. I had an unwillingness to try anything new as I thought what was already existent was good enough. I worked on myself and at this stage in my life I'd say I'm very well-rounded. I'd be happy to answer any questions pertaining to DID and MBTI.

And alter integrations can happen though it is rarely a 'fix' or cure to the underline problem. There were two alters that were part of our system that merged out of choice. It worked well for them but often it doesn't help anything if not create more hostility within the system.
Isn't ESTJ an INFP in stress? So could it be that ESTJ is your coping mechanism?
 

Octandempus

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An INFP in stress is usually near a sobbing mess. Most INFPs have a real lack of assertiveness and self-worth. Being in a stressful event wouldn't make an INFP present as an ESTJ. Now, you could argue that because the original is an INFP that it makes sense that an alter be an 'opposite' as an ESTJ and be able to manage what the original (INFP) cannot, which is essentially my job/role. I'm the janitor. I'm the one that cleans up messes and works.
 

Lib

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An INFP in stress is usually near a sobbing mess. Most INFPs have a real lack of assertiveness and self-worth. Being in a stressful event wouldn't make an INFP present as an ESTJ. Now, you could argue that because the original is an INFP that it makes sense that an alter be an 'opposite' as an ESTJ and be able to manage what the original (INFP) cannot, which is essentially my job/role. I'm the janitor. I'm the one that cleans up messes and works.
This is exactly what I meant. But if you understand that, why do you still have a split?
 

Octandempus

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This is exactly what I meant. But if you understand that, why do you still have a split?

It is common for many people to think that those who dissociate aren't aware of it near at all which does definitely happen. There are many things that really need gone over to explain all of this but I'll try to summarize everything up here. Dissociation alone occurs in a high majority of people every day. Dissociation is as simple a thing as not fully remembering the drive to work. Many people think of it as an 'auto-pilot. That is dissociation in a nutshell.

Now for people with DID, it is always through severe trauma that most often causes PTSD that alters are first formed, most commonly in early childhood. Now it is common, especially at first that people are unaware that they switch at all. Sometimes it is the similar feeling as described above as just a sense of memory gap. Sometimes memories are made up to feel those gaps. In many cases of people living with DID, especially those who come into adulthood, most are aware to some degree of their DID. Our specific system is fully aware of our existence and we also have the ability to 'switch' at will in most cases, though certain triggers still exist. DID is never cured. It is simply maintained. We are completely maintained. we have never and will never pose any danger to anyone despite public fears and ignorance of DID (Especially with such bullshit as the movie Split and other films influencing public opinion). The original is aware of the system just as I am aware of it and to each of us, we are all family. We simply share a body living with our own wants, needs, hobbies, personality. I can go much more in detail at a later time. At work currently, working hard of course.
 

Maou

Mythos
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Jun 20, 2018
Messages
6,117
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INTP
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5w6
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
MPD appears to me to be (having experienced one such individual in great detail) a case in which one has taken the various "voices" in one's head (which argue different perspectives, or play roles in understanding/predicting real life interactions, and so on, in a normal, healthy way), and has come to understand them as being real entities in their own right. Normally, such voices are just "sock puppets" for one's own amusement/understanding, and will say whatever you want them to say, but you have internal rules for how they talk/argue. When they become "real", and one is convinced that each is "another self," then they can switch themselves out, and tend to struggle for power. The internal world becomes extremely complex: there are even personalities that don't normally come out, but play a significant role in deciding which personality comes out, there are other personalities that have various roles in taking care of other matters, or even taking care of the needs of still other personalities, all the while not actually surfacing except in rare intervals.

However, that is just my reporting 2nd-hand of one MPD individual's perspective. From my personal perspective, the reason it's a disorder is not that one has all of these voices or roles, but because the MPD individual uses the other personalities to dissociate from reality and avoid personal responsibility, usually to avoid whatever one perceives as a painful experience. An alcoholic or drug user will use chemicals to achieve a similar effect, but the MPD gets there just by adopting a different personality. Also, the MPD does not do this in a useful way: the switching is mostly done to avoid pain, and is quite random - it is not like a Swiss army knife from which one chooses the most appropriate personality.

One can use MBTI and Jungian functions to describe these alternate personalities, but neither MBTI or Jung actually explain or even approach explaining this particular mental disorder, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

This sounds startlingly a lot like me when I was in high school, but I was very aware of it being a bad thing but I kept doing it anyways because it made me feel better. I had tested as a different type entirely then (INFP), as part of school. I realize in hindsight, back then was not me at all. I had severe personality oppression going on in my life. I wouldn't say it got so bad I wasn't remembering stuff, and I was probably lucky to avoid it before it got too bad.

After I had graduated, I ended up getting psychosis through isolation depression. I went through a drastic change in personality, but I managed to "come back" and reestablish myself. I had actively forced/suppressed the thoughts, as I was able to recognize them as a problem. Though this might sound outrageous. I'm totally aware that this is probably not something everyone can do, or I am greatly misunderstanding what condition I was in.

The with [MENTION=37976]Octandempus[/MENTION] 's post, I can say I also thought I was one of these "Systems" and I also identified as a Therian as well. After I got my shit together, I had successfully gotten rid of all of these personalities but one in particular. Well, I wouldn't say it is a personalty, but rather a ball of emotions that I keep separate from myself. I feel as if I am in a perpetual state of disassociation. And this other self is separate from me, and that I am actually the "fake" personality on the strings of this ball of emotions I cannot communicate with. I later learned this is what you call "Schizoid", but I am not officially diagnosed with it. It's just the conclusion I had gotten based on self-observation and understanding. I didn't even know it existed, till my friend suggested that I read into it because he thought I was that.
 

Lib

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This sounds startlingly a lot like me when I was in high school, but I was very aware of it being a bad thing but I kept doing it anyways because it made me feel better. I had tested as a different type entirely then (INFP), as part of school. I realize in hindsight, back then was not me at all. I had severe personality oppression going on in my life. I wouldn't say it got so bad I wasn't remembering stuff, and I was probably lucky to avoid it before it got too bad.

After I had graduated, I ended up getting psychosis through isolation depression. I went through a drastic change in personality, but I managed to "come back" and reestablish myself. I had actively forced/suppressed the thoughts, as I was able to recognize them as a problem. Though this might sound outrageous. I'm totally aware that this is probably not something everyone can do, or I am greatly misunderstanding what condition I was in.

The with [MENTION=37976]Octandempus[/MENTION] 's post, I can say I also thought I was one of these "Systems" and I also identified as a Therian as well. After I got my shit together, I had successfully gotten rid of all of these personalities but one in particular. Well, I wouldn't say it is a personalty, but rather a ball of emotions that I keep separate from myself. I feel as if I am in a perpetual state of disassociation. And this other self is separate from me, and that I am actually the "fake" personality on the strings of this ball of emotions I cannot communicate with. I later learned this is what you call "Schizoid", but I am not officially diagnosed with it. It's just the conclusion I had gotten based on self-observation and understanding. I didn't even know it existed, till my friend suggested that I read into it because he thought I was that.
The whole multiple personalities topic makes me doubt that most of us approach cognitive functions correctly.

Different personality types sound like coping mechanisms to adapt to different situations. You develop your functions as a response to the environment, starting from what you've already learned in combination with genetic factors.

All cognitive functions and coping strategies are present in us. For example, your period as an INFP was a temporary coping mechanism, the way I see it. I myself used some of my functions to develop others because I found it necessary in particular situations - it was mostly a conscious decision, not related to any split. Now, I exhibit many different dominant functions, which makes my true type hard to define.

Not that I reject the type classification, but some of its implications are a little blurry to me. How deep does this thing go? How far it extrapolates? To my knowledge, the only scientifically proven distinctive brain patterns concern introversion vs extroversion (actually, these patterns could very well be acquired in early childhood too). There are some attempts to relate intuition/sensing to genetics but I believe it's just the way our brain builds connections, something it could be taught how to do - that is basically what we are supposed to learn in school. I, being a dyslectic, with an impaired learning ability, prefer the intuitive way to understand concepts because my brain's been developing in an unusual way since early childhood. According to brain standards it's a defect but I found a way to compensate for it, which made me the class topper in school and uni. Now, I can build the linear pattern of learning, related to sensing as it requires attention to details, without much effort, it's like turning on and off a switch, so one could say that my brain enhanced itself by using cognitive patterns to change these cognitive patterns. I could completely switch to sensing.

My point is that our type doesn't define us, it's just the starting point of our development. This could help find your way back to the other parts of yourself that you separate and neglect. I think we become most unhealthy when we stick to some sort of limiting self-image, which might be the process behind DID, and many people use personality classification to justify such natural tendency to belong.

Just my thoughts. But it'd be great if someone shed more light on these processes. I don't consider myself an expert.
 

Tomb1

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994
The tritype concept has similar diagnostic features as multiple personality disorder.
 

Tomb1

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Care to elaborate?

Well, as a preliminary matter, the enneagram presents distinct personality types. To have an enneagram type and/or a personality implies a specific foundation in both the conscious and unconscious mind-- a foundation is comprised of a worldview, narratives people tell themselves, unconscious motivation, core avoidances, defense mechanisms, chief characteristics, etc...each personality is like a system in and of itself and runs on a specific logic. One can't instinctively possess the strategies of a type without first having the foundational elements of that type. Tritype clearly satisfies the two or more personality states feature of MPD. Like MPD, the tritype concept holds that these alternate personalities take over the individual's behavior under stress. So the same innate capacity for disassociation is a common denominator. Also like MPD, the tritype concept holds that each person has one personality that is more dominant than the others. The core difference is that the fauvres make the claim that switching to different personalities under stress is a natural and productive thing; multiple personality disorder documents this phenomena as rooted in severe physical or sexual childhood abuse.

Of course, tritype is immaterial. The Fauvre's claim contradicts this mountain of evidence rendered by serious researchers in the field of MPD as to the cause of switching personalities under stress to make life more manageable, and to date, the Fauvres have failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for this contradiction. Furthermore, if tritypes were real, it would be impossible to arrive at a valid breakdown for each type, wing and stack. Thus, my breakdown for each type, wing and stack disproves tritype in spades as it shows there was never a problem in the first place that required a concept like tritype to solve.
 

notmyapples

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Oct 26, 2017
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INFP
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9w1
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sp/so
An INFP in stress is usually near a sobbing mess. Most INFPs have a real lack of assertiveness and self-worth. Being in a stressful event wouldn't make an INFP present as an ESTJ.

We tend to revert to our inferior functions under excessive stress, i.e. 'Te hammer' mode. ESTJs are the sobbing messes when in stress mode.
 

Lib

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We tend to revert to our inferior functions under excessive stress, i.e. 'Te hammer' mode. ESTJs are the sobbing messes when in stress mode.
Oh dear, the guy is bashing one of his personalities. Give him a break.
 

Pionart

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Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
I have recently discovered a theory about personality that suggests we have a core personality (similar to MBTI) that we received at birth, but that which is NOT necessarily evident or obvious in a person, except at infancy. The idea is that the core personality devises ways to wear a different persona and that it is, more or less, a partly unconscious endeavor. Now MBTI suggests to do so means to exert more energy than needed because we have one personality that is the only minimal-energy-viable personality. I believe this is partly true; I believe if a person exerts the initial inertia of energy needed to be another type that once done will require minimal energy to use at will, it becomes a preference without the person being aware unless isolated and made to reflect on their identity. The idea uses Jung's idea of archetypes in place of personality. I think this is a correct approach. And I think the only problem anyone will have with this is supposed evidence of others failing to change their personality and ending up reverting back to a state already familiar or losing their (sometimes temporarily) sanity. This can happen for two reasons: not putting forth the appropriate energy or having too many roadblocks put in their cognitive way for it to be a worthwhile endeavor (thus the retreat). But I will discuss this below.

But what I want to get at now then is what has been covertly attacking the idea of personality on this board - multiple personalities. It seems what we really have here is a conflict between a belief in one personality and a belief in multiple personalities. Jung remarked that to have no personality was, for the most part, an unhealthy state to be so susceptible to other personalities and removed from a defined self to interact with the world in. If we take this to be true, then what can we say about the inverse? If someone has all or many of the personalities at their disposal, then what better way to interact with the world? Of course, this assumes quite a lot of initial building-energy and growth on an individuals part, but are we doing ourselves justice by eliminating the possibility?

But back with the idea of a person changing a personality, let us consider first those that fail. We can look at the homeless guy on the street walking back and forth talking to himself or the seemingly-psychotic patient in a mental ward going back and forth between different identities and playing with them, perhaps in search of finding one that can be used to align everything and help them interact well with their environment, and we can assume that having more than one personality is dangerous, can leave someone to such confusion and indecision that they can not interact, that having more than one personality means to be fragmented. But I propose that those individuals are fragmented because they never reached a personality state that defended them from great stress or that satisfied their needs with the world; they are (temporarily) broken, and for perfect reasoning, like a neglected now-inoperable machine that never received its maintenance services, and I suggest that those who have successfully integrated multiple personalities to mold many, instead of one, personality mask, are quite healthy and quite reasonable in attacking the idea of MBTI.

Discuss??

Yes, that's right, we do have multiple types. In fact, we potentially can access all 16 types within our conscious mind - and not just that, but to utilise each given type in more than just its own default manner.

We do have a primary type - this is the type generally said to be one's "type". We then have some secondary types, which come up every now and again for purposes where the primary type is insufficient, or simply as a maintenance process of achieving balance in the psyche.

Then, there are those types that we do not regularly access, or may not have a tendency to access at all. We can still attempt to access these, but like you said it requires an input of energy to raise this from the unconscious into (temporarily) consciousness.

As the secondary types provide the necessary balance to the psyche created by the one-sided nature of the primary type, it is not crucial to integrate those types remaining, however it can be beneficial for the purpose of understanding yourself and the world from the greatest vantage point possible.

Accessing alternate personalities is a simple process. Do you know about the cognitive functions, and which type has which cognitive functions? Then say to yourself "I will now become type ABCD", and your mind will naturally rearrange itself into the corresponding pattern. This can be done without you realising it if you mistype yourself - you will become a type other than your primary. The misperception of oneself/misunderstanding of the psychological typing system creates a force in the psyche which alters its natural functioning. And if you type yourself correctly then what will happen is that a force will still alter your cognition by (hypothetically, at least) reducing the impact of the non-primary types (depending on how strongly you identify with the type).

This is a major problem with the idea of typing oneself, because even if you have the correct type for yourself, it is not correct to say that one exists as one type and only one type. Only with the proper caveats can one type themself without creating an imbalance in their psyche.
 

brightflashes

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Jul 25, 2017
Messages
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MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder is trauma-based fragments of personality that people develop to handle repeated stressful events. While this is often depicted as dramatic and over-the-top, the truth is that it is healthy and expected that people experience dissociation frequently. One easy example of dissociation is the way one might disconnect from themselves in a certain way to suspend belief while reading a book or watching a movie; while there are levels of consciousness and cognition going on, a part of the "person" is removed from the stimulus. This non-traumatic self-induced dissociation is required to enjoy certain forms of entertainment.

Jung talks a bit about integration (functions, archetypes) as they go through an individuation process not unlike self-actualization. It is when the functions and personality fragments are whole and balance that the individual is considered healthy by psychodynamic measures.

Having multiple personalities - or, fragments of coping/defense mechanisms - does not indicate the sort of character described in the OP: someone who is delusional, disconnected from reality, and psychotic. Psychosis is rarely induced by anything other than a chemical imbalance within the human brain (drug induced or not). Instead, it indicates either a typical person with a particularly developed imagination or a person post-trauma who may be struggling (consciously or not) to integrate a part of their psyche they are frightened by or find distasteful.

I recommend reading about Jung's take on active imagination and integrating the Shadow Self for further insight into this particular dynamic, if one wants more information. I do caution against using active imagination unless one has been through therapy, has a superior ability to regulate the mind/connect with reality, or who has gone through training to administer the technique to others.

Hopefully this helps.
 

dougvincent1138

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Jan 13, 2018
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INFJ
As someone who has DID myself (ourselves) I would like to clarify some misconceptions about DID that I am seeing in this thread.

First of all, the terms MPD and DID are not interchangeable. Multiple personality disorder is an outdated term that is no longer used by any mental health professional who actually knows something about DID, and for good reason. The term dissociative identity disorder is a much more accurate description of what it actually is. Continuing to refer to a DID person as "multiple personalities" is a bit like referring to someone with bipolar disorder as "manic depressive," which was the former, outdated term for that disorder.

This leads to my next point. The misunderstanding of DID as "multiple personalities" leads to the further misunderstanding about what we as alters in a DID system actually are and how we are formed. We have had many people ask us, "Isn't it sort of like an exaggeration of how we all have different parts of ourselves, like our work self and our parent self, etc.? It's just that your parts have become more separate and turned into separate people, right?" No, not really. This theory assumes that the formation of an alter starts as a split of personality and then develops into a split of identity. But the truth is actually the opposite. It starts as a split (or as we like to call it, divergence) of identity, and then leads to that separate identity eventually forming their own personality. But not just their own personality, but their own likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams and fears, opinions, etc., which of course are more than just personality. It's possible for several people who have the same personality type to have wildly different outlooks on life depending on their own individual experiences and preferences. In our DID system, we have not all taken the MBTI yet, but so far we know that we have at least four ENFP's, three INFP's, two INFJ's, two ENFJ's, etc. The alters who have the same personality types in our system are similar in their attitudes, of course, but they are distinct and separate identities.

So what causes this separation of identity? It is not, as some in this thread have suggested, a desire to avoid personal responsibility. It is a coping mechanism that is brought on by severe trauma. In most cases of DID, this involves repeated and severe abuse, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that. It can be any severe trauma, such as an invasive medical procedure that is done to you at an age at which you are too young to understand what is happening, or a severe physical injury to yourself or a loved one at a young age, or other types of trauma. DID always happens before the age of about 7-9 years, because that is the age at which a person's sense of self is usually fully formed and integrated, and one has developed ways of mentally coping with trauma that do not involve diverging into separate identities. But when such a divergence does happen, in a child that is younger than that age range, it is not because the child is trying to avoid being responsible. It is because the normal "fight or flight" response to a threat is not possible (the child is too young and weak to physically either fight or flee), so there is a kind of simultaneous fight AND flight that happens mentally. The child's sense of self splits so that one can flee into their own mind while the other fights to cope with the traumatic event that is happening. Once that process has happened once, it becomes the child's default response to trauma, so there can potentially be more divergences, even well into adulthood. But as we begin to heal and understand our DID, we can learn to manage our emotional responses to trauma so that these divergences happen much less often, or hopefully, not at all.

The final point I wish to make is that it used to be a common belief that the separate identities within a DID system could be merged back into a single identity, and that this should be the goal of therapy. However, in recent years, it has become more widely accepted that DID systems can learn to be "functionally multiple", in other words, we can remain separate but learn to work together so that we appear to the outside world (those who don't know about our DID) to be a single person. This is our system's preferred method of healing, because we tried for years to merge into one identity and failed every time. Which when you think about it, it makes sense that the method of merging would be extremely difficult if not next to impossible. After all, how do you reconcile the differences between separate identities who have not only different personalities, but also different memories, genders, sexual preferences, political and religious ideas, preferences in food, music, etc., etc.? But when we learn to embrace those differences and learn to work together and find common goals and directions for our shared life, we can make great strides in emotional healing. It's very difficult to have several "headmates" that you have to constantly negotiate with in order to live your life, but much like any family or group of friends, it can potentially be very rewarding at times as well.

I have said all of this not to try to shame anyone or express anger at anyone for having incorrect ideas about DID, but rather because I want to educate people about it so that more people will understand people like us, and know that we are not the dangerous, violent monsters that Hollywood likes to portray us as.

Thank you,

Denise D. (ENTJ) of the Doug Vincent system
 

Kanra Jest

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Kind of annoying to always see this "trauma happens when you're super super young" to where your mind fractures when you're still a little kid. When you had autism like I however, you develop slower in almost every area, I was far less aware of what others were at the same age, my trauma developed more later in life but my mind was still heavily growing and forming. My trauma for the most part happened later in life and as such fractured me. So I imagine for an autistic or "developmentally challenged" would be a fairly unique case.

In any case, the concept of multiple personalities certainly fascinates me. I have resembled it do to my unstable sense of identity and who I even am. And occasional identity splits where I very much act different. I have learned to slip it through as a sense of humor lately though so it isn't taken in a "concerning way" by others. But I can't imagine the severity of those who black out and completely change in every respect and have no memory. But I have known one (an ex love of mine) who did and I met most of them, being so close.

I, however, am under the belief that subsuming all personalities into one personality may not be the best option. But it may be too. It all depends I suppose, I've heard it happen before. But usually those "proclamations" are "God" related. And I don't like to subscribe to any higher absolute. I am of the opinion that of which I developed to cope had it's purpose and should not be completely gotten rid of anyway. For within life to live your life wearing your heart on your sleeve open to everyone and everything would be foolishness. But it is still wise to make it manageable. Useful, shielded when necessary, open when necessary. As much as necessary. With whichever is deemed worthy. Play the game of life smart.

The problem with multiple personality disorder I understand though is the fractured confusing sense of self. Ever in motion, and not any one thing. Can cause great distress. At least in me. Like with my gender dysphoria. Then there's BPD "splitting". Because I can't fully categorize myself and unfortunately my mind always wants to do that (Ti) categorize everything for without it there is no clarity. But then, if we're all a certain way, then we're not special. And that's not fun either. :content: how amusing, and annoying

Don't mind me. For I have little to offer it would appear. But I have had experience with it since I had my closest ever ex love who was like so.

It goes further too but I'd rather not explain any more. I'm too fucking honest and forward enough as it is in all honesty. As I'm feeling too exposed... But I feel I need to speak regardless because there are things to be said.....:dry:hmph
 
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