Multiple personality, which played a central role in psychiatry and psychology in the era of Janet and Prince, also attracted the interest of Freud and Breuer, and was utilized by Freud as a model for some of his early formulations. Later, with his distancing from Breuer and rivalry with Janet, and with the growing emphasis upon repression at the expense of dissociation, Freud's interest in multiple personality diminished. This

change is reflected in the relative neglect of the topic in psychoanalytic literature. It is suggested, however, that psychoanalysis needs and is able to deal with this phenomenon, and several contributions are suggested as potential foundations: Freud's later thought on identification and on splitting; Fairbairn's work on object relations and ego splitting, which may be recast in terms of the representational world; Kernberg's writings on borderline personality organization; and Kohut's formulation of 'the vertical split'.