Persons One And Three: A Study In Multiple Personalities

by Shepherd Ivory Franz

""Persons One and A Study in Multiple Personalities"" is a book written by Shepherd Ivory Franz that delves into the complex and fascinating world of multiple personalities. The book explores the case of a patient who exhibits three distinct personalities, each with their own unique characteristics, memories, and behaviors. Through detailed analysis and observation, Franz attempts to understand the underlying psychological factors that contribute to the development of multiple personalities, as well as the ways in which these personalities interact and coexist within the individual. The book provides a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the human mind, and offers insights into the complex nature of identity, memory, and consciousness. It is a must-read for anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry, or the mysteries of the human psyche.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2010

Reviews

[Bri Fidelity · Rating 3 out of 5]

There aren't too many full-length accounts of dual/multiple personality between the 'golden age of the subconscious' and the grim post-Sybil set; so it's really a shame that this one is so brief and unsatisfying.

Franz, a California doctor, treats a 40something man (C.J. Poulting, the title's 'Person 3') who was apparently rendered amnestic by a head injury some time during the First World War. After intense and repeated questioning on his past by Franz - no hypnosis, thankfully, so we can judge the case more or less on its own merits - Poulting suddenly begins to alternate between this state and that of his 27-year-old self (John Charles 'Jack' Poultney, the title's 'Person 1'). At different points in the narrative, both of them seem to recover the blanks in their respective memories, but they continue to alternate thereafter, with no memory of their brief reintegrations (if 'reintegrations' is the right word) even as the story ends, with Poultney returning home to his wife and sons in Ireland after fifteen years MIA. Franz seems to consider him cured.

Some of Poulting/Poultney's wartime memories are delightfully unlikely:

He told of a number of disconnected incidents which he referred to the journey between Mombasa and Nairobi. For example, he seemed to recall having been captured by the German troops. He also recollected that he, with a second British soldier who was also captured, was given over to some negro troops of the German forces. He told the story of how he and his companion killed the two negro soldiers who guarded them, took their guns and ammunition, and made their escape. How long and how far they travelled together he was uncertain. He thought they were travelling in the direction of the British troops. They saw many wild animals, and Poulting reported that both lions and leopards were especially bold, and would attack men.

One night, shortly after their escape from the Germans, Poulting, who was not too confused to recognise the danger of sleeping on the open ground, climbed a tree, into which he tied himself, while his companion, who was tired and who refused to do this, slept on the ground near the tree. During the night, Poulting awoke and found that his companion had been attacked by leopards, which had overcome him. They killed and then they ate him.

This particular incident, however, is almost certainly linked to the 'eureka!' memory of a pet monkey at Voi that represented 'Person 1's' first flashback to his 'Person 3' identity*:

This animal was apparently his closest, and perhaps his dearest, companion. He kept him on a leash. One night, when in his tent (?) at Voi, Jack was disturbed by the chattering of his monkey. He arose and picketed the animal to a tree or a bush ten or twenty yards away. Later, the same night, he was again awakened by the cries of the animal, and then in the clear moonlight he saw a leopard approach, pounce upon the monkey, tear it away from its picket and carry it away.

I think - though Franz doesn't - that they're likely both versions of the same event: one beefed-up into a men's magazine adventure, and one left as-is. But who knows?

The case has enough in common with both early accounts of 'dual personality' (Thomas Hanna and Mary Reynolds both had initially amnestic other selves with whom they would alternate) and with accounts of dissociative fugue (see: Ansel Bourne; Boris Sidis' 'Air. S') that I think they must represent different forms of the same basic syndrome. As 'Person 3', Poultney feels a constant 'wild desire to travel', under the vague impression that he might 'find [him]self' somewhere else in the world; in his brief 'confused' states - which may represent aborted attempts at further fugues - he also travels some distances, a defining fugue trait. (Perhaps dual personalities represent temporary fugue identities that somehow - perhaps empowered by all the attention they recieve? - manage to briefly persist even when the original self 'wakes up'.)

The most disorienting dislocation in space and time is probably Poultney's 1926 trip - as 'Person 1' - from Los Angeles to Panama:

When [Person 3] took his 'unconscious' trip [...] he travelled by the boat on which he had already taken three trips, and he knew the boat quite well. He "woke up" when travellers were disembarking at the Panama Canal. According to an account which he overheard at the time he came to himself, it seems that he boarded the boat without a ticket, and that a man passenger was ill and did not go to his meals, so that Poulting was able to substitute for him in the dining saloon. He was also told that he had been "the life of the party" on board the boat, that he organised games and took part in them; he kept groups of passengers amused and was not suspected of being a stowaway until he could exhibit no ticket when the other passengers were landing and sightseeing in the Canal Zone.

What ultimately becomes of Poultney - or, for that matter, the rather sad family that took him in on the mistaken but determined belief that he was their missing son - is, due to the swift publication of the book after the events of the case, not related. I'd love to know.



* There may or may not have been a 'Person 2' in the seven months left blank between these states; he makes no appearances here, unless Poulting and Poultney's 'confused spells' represent - like Félida X's incoherent state - his manifestations. The title is based on Franz' conjecture.