A Case of Hypnotically Produced Secondary and Tertiary Personalities

Manifestations of multiple personality resulting from hysterical dissociation is probably the most fascinating objective activity of endopsychic phenomena, as well as being among the rarest. It has been estimated that approximately one hundred authentic cases are known to science (4).

An excellent definition of multiple personality is offered by Fox (8), who believes it “consists in the alteration of two or more distinct personalities, the sum of whose distinctive characteristics, roughly speaking, is equivalent to what should be the normal personality of the individual”. It appears after a study of the literature that the personalities appeared spontaneously or followed variable degrees of physical or emotional trauma in psychopathological individuals (15, 16, 3, 9, 11, 14, 18). Treatment of these cases was directed for the most part toward fusion of the dissociated states by means of hypnosis.

Literature concerned with case reports and discussions of the application of hypnosis to the production of disparate personalities is sparse. Coriat (5) described a case concerning a 36 year-old woman who spontaneously regressed under hypnosis to the age of 18. Later he purposely caused her to regress to three additional chronological age-levels. These productions were considered “hypnotic personalities” and were recognized as being the original individual at particular periods in her life. A fortuitously elicited dual personality was also discussed by Erickson and Kubie (6) who had been utilizing hypnosis in the treatment of an obsessional phobia in a 20 year-old woman.

Multiple personalities were experimentally produced by Harri-man (12) who caused the subject to undergo “depersonalization” while under deep hypnosis. The resultant personality was one which adopted a role determined by phantasies, and presented a pattern of behavior which was “subconsciously motivated”.