You probably will have sufficient curiosity to want to know how the
reintegration of the dissociated phases into a single normal personality
was accomplished: that is to say how a cure was brought about and the
original personality was obtained. It was very simple and can be told in
a few words. The method was the same as that employed in the case of
Miss Beauchamp.
Each of the dissociated personalities A and B could be hypnotized. When
A was hypnotized she went into a state which we will call _a_ and when B
was hypnotized she went into a state which we will call _b_. Now both
these states could be still further hypnotized. When the process of
hypnotizing _a_ was carried further a state was obtained which we will
provisionally call _x_. When the process of hypnotizing _b_ was carried
further a state was obtained which we will call provisionally _y_. Now,
when studying these two hypnotic states, _x_ and _y_, they were found to
be the same state. That is to say they had the same memories and other
traits of personality. Furthermore they were found to be a combination
of both _a_ and _b_, possessing all the memories, emotions and innate
dispositions which were lost in A and therefore possessed by B and all
those that were lost in B and therefore possessed by A. In other words,
it was the complete normal personality but in the hypnotic state. This
hypnotic state, therefore, which had been previously labeled both _x_
and _y_ was now labeled _c_. All that remained to do, therefore, was to
wake up _c_ and the trick would be done, for we would then have,
theoretically, the normal C personality. So this procedure was carried
out and the normal personality was obtained.
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Footnote 292:
Fourth according to the division of periods here adopted.
Footnote 293:
Money matters.
Footnote 294:
Second which brought the B personality.
Footnote 295:
Apropos of this B states: “I still continued, in a sense, as the B
complex in the same way as during the time when C lived the life which
was in accordance with my nature and opposed to hers, i.e., the out of
doors life during the latter part of the second period; only, as a
result of the time (_period III_) when I was the sole personality
(though I did not think of myself as such) and had lived my own life,
I had, it seems to me as I look back upon it, become more
crystallized. There had before seemed to be a conjoining of two
natures, and there was now, only the second one, myself, was more
strongly integrated. C, or rather A, as I shall call this new phase,
had no amnesia for the preceding period (_III_), and as before was
still perfectly aware of the B complex. She was ruled by this complex,
as C had before been ruled, and kept right on doing things in
accordance with the impulses of the B complex. She was something like
a somnambulist, I think, partly realizing the difference in her
conduct, which seemed strange to her, and unable to help herself.”
Footnote 296:
At this time A had removed from the environment in which all this that
has been narrated had taken place, and had come under my care; she was
then A. There were no longer calls for duty to be performed, no longer
responsibilities to carry out. B was dormant and it was impossible for
the fixed idea to act, though undoubtedly if the former situation was
restored the old parts would have been reënacted; as it was A looked
upon the past as a closed chapter and she was able to judge herself as
A and B. In the quiescence of her fixed idea she was able to see
herself, though in a distorted perspective, and reprobated her conduct
in both phases of personality, and as she says, was “aghast.”
Footnote 297:
Referring to the fixed idea mentioned above of saving this person.
Footnote 298:
Referring to her husband’s illness and death.
Footnote 299:
Lecture XVII.
Footnote 300:
This came about in the following way: One day while A was in hypnosis
she suddenly and spontaneously changed to a different hypnotic state
characterized by change of facial expression, manner, speech, etc. It
was afterwards recognized that this was the B personality in hypnosis.
I had not before seen or heard of the B personality as such. I had
only known that the subject from her own account had been in a
neurasthenic condition and had been through periods of improvement and
relapses. I did not suspect that these phases of improvement and
relapses represented phases of personality such as was soon discovered
to be the case. A few days after the B personality had appeared in
hypnosis this phase spontaneously waked and alternated as it had
previously done, with the A complex. But now, as the writer says,
there was amnesia on the part of A for B. The explanation for this is
undoubtedly to be found in the fact that a new synthesis and more
complete dissociation of the B complex had taken place through the
experience of hypnosis. Analogous phenomena I have observed in making
experimental observations but it would take us too far away to enter
into this question here.
Footnote 301:
During the first weeks of my existence as B I pledged myself to drink
no wine. The promise was made under such conditions that no reasonable
person could have felt bound by it. As B I realized this and felt no
obligation to keep it but as A, I could not feel so, though you had
assured me over and over again that I was not in honor bound.
Footnote 302:
Prince: The Dissociation of a Personality, Longmans, Green & Co.
Footnote 303:
“My Life as a Dissociated Personality,” _Journal of Abnormal
Psychology_, Vol. III, Nos. 4 and 5.