In First Person Plural, first published in 1991 and revised in 1995 in a 2nd edition, Stephen Braude has attempted to emulate what he calls "the good old days of philosophy" -- about 2500 years ago -- when philosophers played an important and visible role in society by discussing "issues of concern to the community as a whole" (p. 1). The issue of concern that Braude addresses here is no less than that of what we, as individual personalities, really are; and it is an issue that has intensified in interest during the last century or so, as our commonsense assumptions about ourselves seem increasingly to have come into conflict with scientific observations of mind and behavior. A phenomenon that has brought this issue glaringly into focus is multiple personality disorder (MPD), a dramatic and in recent years highly publicized disorder in which more than one discrete personality or self seem to be occupying one body. We assume ourselves to be -- because we continually experience ourselves as -- an indivisible subject or "I". If our brain and body can manifest the thoughts and behavior of self-conscious personalities who are not experienced by "me", does this mean that our experience of being an indivisible subject is illusory? Scientists and philosophers increasingly answer "yes". In this book Braude argues against the view of most contemporary philosophers and scientists that human personality is a multiplicity, or aggregate of discrete psychophysiological elements, and he defends instead the view that, at a level deeper than the ostensible multiplicity, the self is in fact a unity.

In the first four chapters Braude discusses the phenomenon of dissociation in general, and MPD in particular, in an attempt to spell out more clearly the relation between the two phenomena, to find a satisfactory definition of dissociation, and thus to understand why MPD challenges our ordinary concept of self, whereas other kinds of dissociative phenomena do not. In Chapter 1 Braude provides readers with some historical background by reviewing briefly the history of hypnotism, and therefore of the development of ideas about dissociation and subconscious functioning, from Mesmer through the late 19th century. In Chapter 2 he provides additional background with a brief survey of the general phenomenology of MPD. He presents, for example, the currently prevailing view of MPD as the product of a person's unusual capacity for dissociation, together with a history of childhood trauma, particularly abuse. He also describes the number and kind of personalities that may appear, and some of the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral relationships between them.

In Chapter 3 Braude asks how MPD differs from other kinds of dissociative processes, in his attempt to understand why the former challenges our ordinary assumptions about the nature of a person, whereas the latter do not. In most dissociative states, such as those in which a person writes automatically or is hypnotized, the person accepts the altered behavior and thoughts during this state as belonging to him or her, even though they may be inaccessible to ordinary consciousness or memory. In MPD, in contrast, the alternate personalities present themselves -- and seem to experience themselves -- as being "distinct centers of self-awareness" (p. 68). There seem to be, not simply behaviorally different states of one person, but more than one apperceptive center, or self-conscious subject, each of which experiences certain psychological states as its own. According to Braude, therefore, MPD seems to be different in kind, and not just in degree, from other dissociative states (p. 90). With this conception of multiplicity as experientially or psychologically, and not just behaviorally, distinct from other kinds of dissociation, Braude then raises the possibility that ostensible possession and mediumship (states that also exhibit apparently distinct personalities) are nonpathological instances of multiplicity.

In Chapter 4 Braude turns from the specific task of defining multiplicity to the more general task of defining dissociation. He first discusses some basic assumptions about dissociation -- namely, that dissociation is a human capacity that, like other capacities, manifests in a variety of forms and degrees in different persons and at different times; that dissociated states in some sense belong to the person, even though they may be outside conscious awareness; and that dissociated material is thus in principle accessible to consciousness, given the proper means of accessing it. Braude then points out some of the important changes in the concept of dissociation that have occurred. For example, Janet and Morton Prince, early pioneers in the study of dissociation, limited it to its pathological forms, whereas the term is now applied to a much broader range of phenomena, normal as well as pathological. Perhaps more important, whereas dissociative states were at first thought to be isolated, subsequent observations have shown that the barrier between states is in fact permeable, such that the states interact and influence each other in various degrees. Braude also discusses concepts related to dissociation, such as co-consciousness, suppression, and repression; he evaluates some previous attempts to define dissociation; and finally he offers his own definition, a six-point definition incorporating some of the assumptions about and unique characteristics of dissociative phenomena that Braude discussed earlier in the chapter. When a definition is as lengthy as this one is (about half a page), one cannot help but conclude that we have not yet really understood the essence of the phenomenon; but Braude himself candidly acknowledges that his definition is a tool for discussion and that there cannot be an adequate definition of dissociation until there is an adequate theory of it.

Having provided a general conceptual or descriptive framework for MPD and dissociation, in Chapters 5-8 Braude challenges the prevailing theoretical assumption underlying most contemporary thinking about MPD and the associated belief that the phenomena of multiplicity and dissociation undermine the notion of self or "I" as a fundamental, indivisible unity. This prevailing assumption is that mind is not a basic or elemental unity but is instead an aggregate of parts. This "colonial view of the self -- i.e., the view that a person is a kind of colony of lower-order selves" (p. 124) -- has its roots in philosophical associationism, was forcefully expressed by 19th-century psychologists such as Ribot, and is supported, in the eyes of many contemporary observers, by phenomena such as MPD or split-brain studies. In Chapter 5 Braude dismisses the colonial view of mind as being derived from the "Humpty-Dumpty fallacy", the mistaken assumption that because Humpty-Dumpty broke into 40 pieces when he fell, he was originally constituted out of those 40 pieces. In Chapter 6 Braude argues that arguments for the colonial view are also flawed because they are based on a mistaken application of Plato's law of noncontradiction, that is, that one person cannot be both F and non-F. Braude's central thesis is presented in Chapter 7, where he argues that the phenomena of multiplicity in fact suggest an underlying unity of mind. In particular, Braude believes that the etiology of MPD, as well as the overlapping and interacting traits and capacities of the various personalities, require the hypothesis of "an underlying synthesizing subject who simply evolves into a multiple as a complex and creative response to various life situations" (p. 173). Braude then asks in Chapter 8 to what extent MPD actually challenges the concept of a person, especially since there is no single such concept: "the concept of a person varies quite dramatically from one context or community of interests to another," such as different cultural, theological, legal, sociopolitical, or biological contexts (p. 192). According to Braude, multiple personality does not threaten some single concept of personhood (except the idea that there is one single such concept); instead it forces us to recognize the necessity of a "contextualist account of personhood" (p. 207).

In the final two chapters Braude discusses some more specific issues associated with MPD. In Chapter 9 he compares MPD and mediumship; and he concludes that the observed similarities between the two sets of phenomena are, so far, inadequate to support the hypothesis of mediumship as simply another form of dissociation, but also that the observed differences between them are equally inadequate to support the hypothesis that mediumistic communicators are surviving deceased personalities. He believes that only an intensive depth-psychological study of mediums will help resolve the impasse between these two views of mediumship.

In Chapter 10, a new chapter added to the second edition (and the only real change to the first edition), Braude raises two issues that became increasingly prominent between 1991, when the first edition was published, and 1995. First, in the new (1994) DSM-IV (the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the American Psychiatric Association replaced the term MPD with Dissociative Identity Disorder, in an attempt to neutralize the theoretical and clinical assumptions behind the former. Braude, however, argues that this change of terminology may be not only useless but counterproductive. Finally, in the second and by far longest part of the chapter, Braude enters into the "false-memory" debate. Increasingly in recent years, many psychologists, legal experts, and others have begun to challenge the claims of memories of childhood abuse and trauma recovered by adults in clinical (or other) contexts. However, rather than addressing the central issue behind this debate -- namely, the extent and quality of the evidence that the claimed instances of abuse actually occurred -- Braude chose instead to attack what he sees as the "dishonest" and "ignorant" tactics of many of those who are "skeptics" about abuse claims.

Braude's primary "aim in this book is to examine issues central to our thinking about multiple personality" (p. 4), and the book is invaluable in raising such issues, particularly in his challenge to an assumption widely held (even if unrecognized) by psychologists and others writing about dissociation and mind -- namely, the assumption that human personality is fundamentally a multiplicity rather than a unity. In challenging this view, however, Braude presents an alternative view that is not so much antithetical to the multiplicity view as it is a synthesis of both the unity and the multiplicity positions. He presents his basic thesis in a section entitled "Multiplicity within Unity", where he insists that

we can hold both that alters are distinct psychic entities and also that a unifying self or ego is a precondition for their existence... [W]e need not deny either the reality and functional distinctness of alters or the reality and functional complexity of the underlying subject to whom the entire repertoire of abilities belongs (p. 188).

Readers of this Journal will perhaps particularly appreciate such an approach -- that of attempting to move beyond two diametrically opposed views and find a reconciling, or tertium quid, position. Unfortunately, in controversial areas of science there are too few such attempts, and those few are too often lost in the adversarial clashes.

As Braude recognizes, this debate about the unity of self, and even the observations of dissociation and multiplicity that fuel the debate, are not recent developments. Philosophers and scientists 100 years ago questioned the adequacy of the unity view of mind, for much the same reasons they do so today; and many of them adopted instead the "colonial" or multiplicity view of mind, again for much the same reasons they do today. Braude, however, apparently did not recognize the extent to which many of his own ideas about the underlying unity of self were presented by Frederic Myers, a 19th-century psychical researcher to whom Braude mistakenly attributes the "colonial view." In many of his writings, particularly of the 1890s, Myers attempted to move beyond the two increasingly polarized positions about the nature of mind to find a "reconcilement of the two opposing systems in a profounder synthesis" (Myers, 1903, I:11); and as a result he developed a model of mind or consciousness in which dissociative phenomena are indications not only of multiplicity but also of an underlying unity. In particular, at a time (like today) when most observers emphasized the functional isolation and separateness of the various personalities, Myers (like Braude) tried to draw attention to the extent to which the personalities overlap and share memories or capacities, "the full significance" of which "has hardly yet, I think, been realised in any quarter" (Myers, 1892, p. 303).

Regrettably, in Chapter 10, added to the second edition of this book, Braude abandons the "tertium quid" approach and instead falls into the trap -- all too common in controversial areas -- of remaining mired in dichotomous, adversarial positions. In attacking the "false-memory" proponents in the debate over child abuse claims, Braude adopts a stridently pugnacious tone -- again all too common in controversial science -- that serves only to widen the chasm between the two positions and exacerbate the process in which the two sides attribute to each other extreme, rigid views that are often not entirely accurate. Furthermore, in attacking only what he calls the "dishonest" and "ignorant" rhetorical devices of the false-memory proponents, Braude wholly ignores the central issue behind this debate -- whether the claimed memories are of real events or are illusory. Unfortunately, in science as in politics, progress stalls when attention is focused on the tactics of one's opponents rather than on the problems both sides should be trying to solve.¹

There were also places in the book where I was left with the feeling that Braude had perhaps promised more than he had delivered (a characteristic that is arguably much more an accomplishment than a failing, if one thus stimulates others to think about the problems involved). The central issue implicit in the book is the nature of "I", of the subjective, unified sense of self; and multiple personality seems to offer a novel way of approaching this issue by presenting instances in which several such "I"s seem to occupy one body. Thus, as Braude points out, "the central mystery of MPD" -- and the key theoretical question -- "is how new apperceptive centers are created" (p. 92); and he promises to "offer a novel view of what accounts for the distinct sense of self which each alternate personality seems to enjoy" (p. 5). He offers the view that the alternate personalities are experientially, and not simply behaviorally, distinct; and he describes the prevailing view that MPD arises in response to childhood trauma, especially abuse (an increasingly debatable view, Braude's Chapter 10 notwithstanding). Nevertheless, in describing "the distinct sense of self" and its possible etiology, Braude comes no closer to what "accounts for" a unified sense of self -- that is, consciousness -- regardless of whether we have one or several of them. To paraphrase Voltaire somewhat liberally, it is not more suprising to have two senses of self than to have one.

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 individually, and the book as a whole, all end rather abruptly, leaving the reader dangling almost in mid-sentence. Each of these chapters would have benefitted from some closing remarks summarizing its ideas and placing them in the larger context of the book as a whole. Similarly, the book itself would have benefitted from a concluding chapter in which the threads of the preceding chapters were woven back together in some kind of unifying discussion about the larger issues and purposes of the book. The book thus seems still to be a work in progress, full of important and provocative issues and ideas but unfinished. It is, ironically, itself somewhat like a person with MPD -- having numerous lively, interesting personalities but still not fully integrated, without the unifying sense of self that gives functional coherence to the whole.

Nevertheless, a primary purpose of this book was to help break down the professional isolation of philosophers and scientists, whose work is too often hampered by ignorance of what the other side may have to say about a problem. Braude has here put the scientific work on MPD on stronger philosophical ground by spelling out explicitly issues and assumptions that must be recognized and dealt with fully before there can be an adequate theory of MPD, of dissociation, or of mind in general. In this book Braude has provided the philosophical framework needed to consider and better understand the implications of MPD.

Emily Williams Cook, Ph.D.

Division of Personality Studies

Box 152, Health Sciences Center

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22908

References

Myers, F. W. H. (1892). The subliminal consciousness. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 7, 298.

Myers, F. W. H. (1903). Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. London: Longmans, Green.

¹ For a more balanced discussion of the debate, see Ian Hacking, Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and The Sciences of Memory. Princeton University Press, 1995.

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