How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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the same body, we might just as well go back to the belief
that human beings could be possessed by evil spirits.
The split personalities are usually divided, antithetically,
into a “ good ”, responsible personality, and a “ bad ”,
unmoral, irresponsible personality. The “ good ”
personality always loses in the end, because the result of
any personality split is always a diminution of the personal
responsibility and effectiveness. The belief in a splitting
of the personality, like the belief in the actuality of
conflict, demands a belief in the possession of the body
by good and bad demons. Such a belief would set
psychiatry back a thousand years.
The scientific advocates of the splitting of the
personality explanation for dementia praecox seem never
to have asked the question why the splitting nevei
results in an extension of the personality. This must be
possible, theoretically, for if “ good ” personality A
can be submerged by “ bad ” personality B when Mr. X.
develops dementia praecox, the more powerful, bad
personality B has been held in check by the weaker
personality A of every-day life during the period that
Mr. X. was normal. A split of the personality, there¬
fore, ought to result in a better personality in some
instances according to the laws of mathematical probability,
but so far as the writer knows, there is no record in
psychiatric literature of such an occurrence. We must,
consequently accept the fact that a real splitting of the
personality is impossible, and understand the phenomena
of splitting as an unconscious fiction.
The neurotic only acts “as if” he were a split
personality in order to escape the responsibility demanded
of an integrated personality. We can understand the
usefulness of a seeming split in the personality when we
consider that a split personality is completely irresponsible
for its actions, and that irresponsibility, in the last
analysis, is the purpose and meaning of every neurosis.
If it' were not for the fact that we can trace all the events
leading up to the actual split in the personality and predict
that it will occur in one form or another, and if it were