Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction

Heike Schwarz

Published by transcript Verlag 2013

Beware of the Other Side(s)

Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction

Heike Schwarz

Volume 8 in the series American Culture Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/transcript.9783839424889

Overview
Contents

About this book

This interdisciplinary study examines the still vivid phenomenon of the most controversial psychiatric diagnosis in the United States: multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. This syndrome comprehends the occurrence of two or more distinct identities that take control of a person's behavior paired with an inexplicable memory loss. Synthesizing the fields of psychiatry and the dynamics of the disorder with its influential representation in American fiction, the study researches how psychiatry and fiction mutually shaped a mysterious syndrome and how this reciprocal process created a genre fiction of its own that persists until today in a very distinct self-referential mode.

Author / Editor information

Heike Schwarz (Dr. phil.) teaches American studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany. Her research fields include psychiatry and literature, representation of mental illness in literature, (pop)cultural studies, ecopsychology and ecocriticism.

Supplementary Materials

Leseprobe

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Part I: History and Theory
1 Personalities or Personality States? The Definition of MPD/DID in Psychiatric Terms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2 The Split of Personality: The Diagnosis MPD/DID versus Schizophrenia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
3 Of Demons and Dissociation: The Origins and Early Science of the Other Side Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4 Shock and Trauma: Renaissance of the Dissociation Concept Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
5 The Other Side(s): Famous Cases of Double Consciousness and Multiple Personality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
6 Voices of Doubt: The Validity of Multiple Personality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
Part II: The Culture-embedded Syndrome – Multiple Personality and Dissociation in American Fiction
7 Brand Identity and “Culture-embedded Syndrome”: Multiple Personality in American Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
8 Creating a Public Consciousness: The Role of the Mass Media Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
9 Fractured Minds: Personal Narratives of Multiple Personality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
10 “Man’s Dual Nature” – Classical Literary Texts of Dissociation: Wakefield, William Wilson, Dr. Jekyll, and the Other Side Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
11 Beyond Control: Multiple Personality in the American Novel of the 1950s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
12 Further Divisions: Subgenres of Multiple Personality and Dissociation Fiction since the 1970s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
13 “What is your name?”: Dissociation and Psychogenic Fugues in American Film from the 1950s to the Present Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287
Part III: Contemporary Variations in Selected Novels
14 “This is what Mary would have said…”: Margaret Atwood Alias Grace (1996) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
15 “I know this because Tyler Durden knows this…”: Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club (1996) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
16 “ – textbook MPD”: Matt Ruff Set this House in Order (2003) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335
17 “Three! Three personalities in one…”: Ted Dekker Thr3e (2003) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	351
18 “Recall what had been lost…”: Gabrielle Pina Chasing Sophea (2006) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	363
19 “It’s almost like there are two of me…”: Jess Walter The Zero (2007) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	375
20 “It’s all staged…”: Siri Hustvedt Sorrows of an American (2008) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	391
21 Voices of Imagination: Valid Cases of Fiction Fugues and Storytelling Selves Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	409
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	415
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	423
Filmography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	449

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Edition: 1. Aufl.
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 456
Keywords: Dissociative Identity; American Fiction; Literature; Psychoanalysis; America; American Studies; British Studies; Cultural Studies; Literary Studies

eBook

Published: March 27, 2014
ISBN: 9783839424889