Talk:Multiplicity (psychology)

Expanding this article

While working on this article, I plan to add more about the different kinds of multiplicity that exist (8 types), and expand on those. I also plan on expanding on what multiplicity is, and how it can be treated if it is having a negative impact. With sources of course. Echilcot12 (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, @Echilcot12:. The source you used is not a reliable source, the text you added is not verified by that source you listed, and it's self is not grammatical English.[1] Please review Wikipedia's page on reliable sources, and make sure any text you added is supported by the source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Information to Add

I plan on adding some more information from a book that has already been used as a source on this page. I will include more information about some of the important people in the history of multiplicity and how multiplicity came to be what it is today. I will post more specific information as I continue to work on the article. Echilcot12 (talk) 23:09, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Topic

What exactly is the topic of this article? It seems to be some sort of a vague concept of a person having a different personality at different times/situations. And then there's suddenly the sentence about "Authors who have developed the idea that multiple personality is normal rather than pathological" -- which clearly seems to refer to MPD/DID, which is not the topic of this article. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 13:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Also not the topic of this article: "a group of people sharing a single body"/"headmates". We talked about that in the AfD ("The delete votes are solidly based on policy with respect to the orginal creation, but the good Colonel has transformed the article so its now about multiple persona as they are used by regular people."). — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 13:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Good questions: the article is a mess, I don't know what it pretends to be about, and another round at AFD might not be a bad idea. Otherwise, if you can find a merge target, I'd support a merge proposal. I don't know if anything can be gleaned from User:Echilcot12/sandbox (a student editor planning to expand the article). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not an expert so I'm not going to define what this multiplicity is, but I'm just gonna say that I strongly advise editors to keep in mind what it is that they're writing about, and not derail into other topics. For example that draft^ mentions "amnesic switching" which is probably a quality of DID. Basically, don't use this article here as an alternative place where to write about different understandings/views of MPD/DID. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 10:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read through it but I think this paper talks about the topic of this article. ("One difficulty in describing the “self” is that there may not be a single thing to be described. Rather, recent research suggests that the self is a multiplicity of related, yet separable, processes and contents." ... "Put more positively, what these studies seem to be saying is that the self is a multiplicity, and thus the idea of localizing an entity called the “self” is a nonstarter.") — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 11:00, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

More possible sources?:

• Psychotherapy in light of internal multiplicity -- "The view that the self has multiple parts and that these appear in people seeking psychotherapy—and people conducting psychotherapy—is shared by clinicians of various orientations and supported by psychological research. It is useful for clinicians to think of patients as multifaceted and pay attention to the changes between facets that occur during therapy." ... "The aim of this issue is to present and illustrate psychotherapies that treat the self as multiple. The authors, representing various schools, discuss how to conduct treatment in line with this assumption."
• Vocal manifestations of internal multiplicity: Mary's voices -- "According to the assimilation model, personality may be considered as a community of internal voices representing traces of previous experiences. This study addressed the hypothesis that a person’s internal voices sound different from each other. /--/ These findings support a literal view of internal multiplicity, consistent with a modular organization of experiential information within personality." ... "This study addressed the hypothesis that people actually speak in recognizably different ways depending on which of their internal voices is speaking. If, as the assimilation model suggests, voices encompass whole experiences, with meaning and expressive aspects merged together, then it should be possible to observe differences within one person’s ways of self-expression, including distinctive vocal characteristics. Put another way, insofar as internal voices reflect distinct experiences, they should not only say different things, but they should sound different from each other."

— Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 11:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh crap, the above two articles were available when I posted this, but now they're behind paywall. I came here to say that both of those articles mentioned MPD (though I might remember wrong and can't confirm) but that it was a good thing since they clarified how the disorder is a separate concept from general multiplicity of personalities. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 14:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Having had several decades of first-hand experience with mental illness and the condition of multiplicity in particular, I would ask the editors of this article to focus mainly on what the condition is/involves as well as the difference between it and MPD/DID. I would also ask you to "err" on the side of sharing as much information as possible, in the traditional Wikipedia format, rather than trying to be miserly/overly concise. Humans dealing with their condition(s) urgently need an unbiased source of information for themselves and their intimates. Also,unless you have dealt with mental illness personally (friends or family do NOT count as this), you have little to no idea how much stigma surrounds mental illness, especially the lesser-known types. Wikipedia is an ideal provider in helping to reduce this stigma through knowledge.Kailasa108 (talk) 05:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Missing page numbers

Echilcot12, you have added text cited to a book without including the page numbers from the book. Please address this by adding the page numbers. You can do that by replacing every instance in the article of {{pn}} with {{rp|insert number}}, for example, {{rp|115}}. Please respond on this talk page so other editors know you have seen the posts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Making a More Cohesive Article

There is a divide in the discussion of multiplicity between its view as solely a pathological/diagnosable condition and the belief that it also existing as a normal psychological phenomenon. Often times it is due to the belief that multiplicity is inherently mentally unhealthy, however there are great difficulties in discussing the great variation of multiplicity seeming to silence the experience of a different type of multiplicity.

This article should be able to neutrally describe different types and causes of multiplicity without confusing the reader. I am finding difficulty with this article because the article lacks information yet is already getting verbose.

Here is a quote from the article at the time of typing this comment: "Systems are developed throughout childhood before the ages of 6 to around 9 due to extensive trauma." This statement greatly contrasts the experiences of systems who gained members, for example, through modern/western tulpamancy or simply trauma at another age. The statement does not offer flexibility from this single viewpoint on systems, even if the author did not intend it to appear that way.

There is a lot of valuable information that can be shared from medical research about multiplicity from trauma, dissociation, and identity disorders that should be used to talk about relevant causes of multiplicity. The common belief among psychologists or medical practitioners that multiplicity is a pathology or harmful coping mechanism should be discussed, however when writing this article it needs to be written in a way that also acknowledges alternative experiences. The article most definitely includes the neurodivergent position, the discussion of pathological multiplicity should express more awareness of this and use language that does not contradict it.

More structure in the article on where to put information would also help in reading flow. Combining structure with conscientious wording would allow topics to be written with less need to clarify what cause of multiplicity is or isn't being discussed.

Instead of having the 3 sections "History," "Systems," and "Media Portrayal" which are not well-structured internally and bounce between what is focused on, there could be (not necessarily in this order) sections that go something like:

·Terminology, both academically and informally ·Disorders, in which the text would be assumed to focus on diagnoses and their criteria in the context of psychology and its opinions without needing to constantly refer back to neurodivergence, ·Causes, (with a lot of internal organization!) talking about the different ways one becomes a system, including those leading to diagnoses, but also it happening without any stressors, intentionally becoming a system, etc, ·Neurodivergence, discussing the opinion and experience that having head mates is not inherently pathological, that systems that were formed due unintentionally to stressors or intentionally to cope aren't either, what matters is working towards the well being and functioning of the person, ·History, about the recording/evidence of this phenomenon, worldwide cultural/spiritual beliefs and change over time ·Theories, about division of the mind/consciousness, ·Media Portrayal, stereotyping and its consequences

This phenomenon is also lacking in academic description that encompasses the huge diversity of this phenomenon. I am familiar with multiplicity in medicine and neurodivergency however I do not know about this in great detail, I wish I could add more information about eg dissociative identity myself and make sure it does not clash with the rest of the article. It's unfortunate a lot of neurodivergent information sources are not academic enough for Wikipedia.

If anyone adds info or restructures the article take my thoughts into consideration, if someone has ideas that don't involve a lot organizing I would be interested. I do intend to do this myself in the near future, without information loss. CastellamareAsh (talk) 21:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CastellamareAsh (talk • contribs) 09:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

This article needs quite a bit of work CastellamareAsh, and if you improve it I think it shall be well received.--Mvqr (talk) 11:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Parking some potential sources

Ribáry, Gergő, et al. "Multiplicity: An explorative interview study on personal experiences of people with multiple selves." Frontiers in psychology 8 (2017): 938. - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468408/ - explores multiplicity(rather than DID specifically) as a distinct thing.

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-we-can-learn-about-respect-and-identity-from-plurals - Probably the best source, clearly takes up how plural communities view themselves as people, distinct from DID etc.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/otherkin/ - Clearly takes up plurality and plural communities

Boag, Simon. "Addressing mental plurality: Justification, objections and logical requirements of strongly partitive accounts of mind." Realism and Psychology. Brill, 2011. 727-754. -https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291146686_Addressing_mental_plurality_Justification_objections_and_logical_requirements_of_strongly_partitive_accounts_of_mind - potential accounts of plurality? Probably too heavy to use.

https://narratively.com/the-mystical-mind-sharing-lives-of-tulpamancers/ - association between tulpas and plurality

https://movieweb.com/split-movie-removed-netflix-petition/ - points out that plurality as a community exists(in parallel with DID) and also talks about Split controversy for the media portrayal part

Luhrmann, Tanya Marie, et al. "Beyond trauma: a multiple pathways approach to auditory hallucinations in clinical and nonclinical populations." Schizophrenia Bulletin 45.Supplement_1 (2019): S24-S31. - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330811751_Beyond_Trauma_A_Multiple_Pathways_Approach_to_Auditory_Hallucinations_in_Clinical_and_Nonclinical_Populations - A study alluding to the idea that all multiplicity isn't caused by trauma (mentions dissociation/DID in that regard) Seteleechete (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

NPOV/Request for Expert

This article has me a bit confused.

As per the previous discussion in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Multiplicity (psychology) the notability of this article is in relation to the general psychological concept of Multiplicity. Whereas (and I recognise that this is a sensitive area) the article seems to focus on a subculture, or a certain neurodiversity community, and how they perceive Multiplicity.

This in itself may be worth an article on Wikipedia if it's notable and sources exist. But, what seems to have happened is that an article on a psychological concept has been effectively repurposed to cover a concept that it was not initially intended to. Further, a lot of the content (for example the entire "Systems" section that I Just removed) seemed to be the result of Original Research, without sources.

I think there's certainly an NPOV issue here, which requires some attention. The last year's worth of edits seem to be drawing the article further away from it's original focus.

--Vitalis196 (talk) 04:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

The way I see it the multiplicity(psychology) is information surrounding the concept of being multiple identities/personalities/people sharing a body(thus the psychological idea of multiplicity) which would naturally include discussion about the groups that refer to themselves in this way and their view on the concept, the history of the concept and well everything surrounding it(which can be sourced anyway), rather than a specific narrow area within that very concept(like specific psychological mechanism). Seteleechete (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I have to raise the concern about what counts as an NPOV or an expert on this topic. As a community that's basically arisen as an alternative or even oppositional space to psychiatric attempts to classify the phenomenon, I'd worry that anyone deemed an expert would be the exact kind of person to state that such a thing doesn't exist. Additionally, I think it's more likely that this article has always at least intended to be about that community/identity/subculture/what have you, given the nature of the first edit summary ("References requested, the information is suppressed by the psychiatric community") and the tone of the content. So, I'm also of the opinion that pivoting to an article on the subculture, if that's the best word for it, is probably the appropriate solution (and I can personally assert that there are plenty of good sources out there). Would that require the article be deleted an a new one made, or are we able to salvage this one by renaming it? – vagabondsun (it/its + he/him) | talk ✨ contrib 19:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

As has been said before though, this article is about the psychological concept of multiplicity, rather than any particular community or subculture. This was ground covered during the first AFD process a few years ago. Since concepts like Otherkin have articles on Wikipedia I see no reason why this community can't be notable in it's own right. But this isn't the place for it, it's not what this article is about. --Vitalis196 (talk) 15:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing plurality for the community surrounding it. Plurality is in itself a psychological concept(also going by multiplicity) which happens to have a community surrounding it. As such it's fitting under this title and I see nothing to say(particularly since you even want to delete the article altogether) that it wouldn't fit here. I also still don't think that plurality and personality style aspects are so far apart that they need to have separate articles though again I don't necessarily oppose such a notion. As such I have restored the article. Also again I don't really see any clear consensus on the old afd for what the article is about(and I don't see the relevance, either way it kinda appeared as contentious as it is now anyway). Seteleechete (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I, too, am feeling confusion - because of the discussion here. Previously, I have mainly used Wikipedia as a start place or "jumping off point" to learn about a particular topic. The discussion thus far results in my thinking that an article can only cover one aspect or point of the matter at hand. I disagree with that view. For a quick example of my thinking, look up the Wikipedia article on "animal rights". Following the "one article/one subject" approach, I might miss out on a topic's multiple aspects and/or have to bounce around to multiple articles to chase down one related aspect at a time. Ugh. If nothing else, if the amount of info on the concept of psychological multiplicity becomes unwieldy, the related aspects should/could at least be listed in the "See Also" section of the original article. (That amounts to my conditional agreement with Setellchete.) On the other hand, I disagree with a couple of Vagabondsun's statements. Firstly, an expert's input (if nothing else as from a referenced source) is critical. In under two minutes, I was able to find over 2 dozen articles on psychological multiplicity, by psychologists and/or their organizations. While it might currently prove difficult to actually find an expert to provide up-to-the-minute info on the subject (the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing domestic terrorism here in the USA has more citizens receiving psychological therapy than ever before); but maybe an educator could be a source. Regardless, after the main aspect is covered,there could be additional sections on: 1) groups and organizations dealing with mental health (such as the CDC, NAMI, or MHA) and their view of the topic could be briefly included; as well as 2) a mention of those folks/groups who criticize the concept altogether.Kailasa108 (talk) 05:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Neutrality of Article

I saw that the "neutrality" of the article is under question. I feel those that are questioning this need THEMSELVES to provide more information as to why they feel this way. Currently, from the previous posts on the matter, it would almost seem as if a topic should NOT be included in Wikipedia unless there is/are published/recognized source(s) that refute or criticise the information shared in the article. Kailasa108 (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)kailasa108

"Low Importance" ranking of Article

I was dismayed to see that the article is listed as "low importance"; even if that ranking is based on its current poor style. To me, that is tantamount to a male, civilian, invertebrate biologist ranking an article on sexual assault in the American military as "unimportant" because it was poorly written. I, myself, have educated a number of therapists about psychological multiplicity, because it is not widely known (enough). Because of that, I ask that this article be given at least a "mid" rating. Kailasa108 (talk) 06:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)