really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 4 ratings

"The very first autobiography - though it's really just a couple of journal articles edited together and bound - by a multiple: Nellie Parsons Bean, patient of Dr. Morton Prince, who begins existing in two separate states shortly after the loss of her husband.

(As with Prince's other famous patient, if hypnosis doesn't create 'B.C.A.'s problem, it certainly exacerbates it: initially, she has a full memory of her life as both 'A' and 'B'. Her states only begin keeping their memories to themselves after they've been hypnotised and interviewed.)"

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings

"One of only a handful of notable cases between the 1900s and the 1950s: John (or Jack) Charles Poultney, veteran, whose traumatic experiences in WWI lead him to adopt an amnestic alter ego and - upon meeting Dr. Franz - to alternate between his younger self and his new 'blank slate' persona.

('Person 2' is 'purely conjectural', hypothesised to explain the gaps in the finished product's memory.)"

4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings

"Contains the full account of the Thomas Hanna case - a must-read: a man who generates a completely amnestic and childlike alter ego following a bad fall, but then unexpectedly begins switching between his healthy pre-injury state and his new state - and discusses several obscure others in the appendices, at least two of which seem strikingly post-'Sybil' in their subject matter."

3.65 avg rating — 1,014 ratings

"The last big name in the disorder before Sybil stole the spotlight, 'Three Faces' follows the usual pattern for the era's accounts of dual personality - i.e. tense, inhibited, religious alter vs. fun-loving and irreverent alter, with a bonus 'new' personality thrown in during the therapy. The case only stands out among its fellows due to later developments, not recorded here.

Chris Costner Sizemore's own accounts, 'Strangers In My Body' and 'I'm Eve', reveal that Thigpen's therapy did not in fact cure Our Heroine of anything, and assert that there were at least nine other personalities before Sizemore ever sought therapy (none of them the real 'her')."

3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings

"In Fancher's case, multiplicity seems to be just another expression of the self-imposed psychogenic helplessness that keeps her bedbound and pseudoblind for most of her adult life, after a series of traumatic shocks in her teen years (being thrown from a horse; being dragged along behind a streetcar by her hoop skirt for several blocks).

Michelle Stacey's later biography, sadly, largely omits the identity symptoms and chooses to focus on her other sensational claims: her psychic powers, and her legendary ability to go whole years without food (and still, somehow, have plump healthy cheeks)."

3.74 avg rating — 38 ratings

"Chris Costner Sizemore's first attempt to tell her own life story; sadly rather skippable. Perhaps the first full-length memoir of multiplicity to be written by an 'alter', though it's debatable whether or not 'Evelyn' considers herself to be one."

3.80 avg rating — 15 ratings

"An oft-mentioned classic case: Dr. Prince's patient Clara Norton Fowler, or 'Christine Beauchamp', who exhibits first two opposing personality states (you know the drill: one fun-loving, childish and irresponsible, and one tense, joyless and hyper-religious) then two more, during the course of a hypnosis-intensive therapy.

Shirley Jackson turned the story into the fictional 'The Bird's Nest' in 1954."

3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings

"Another rare between-'booms' account of dual personality, this time from the mid-1920s. Nineteen-year-old 'Norma' abruptly begins alternating with a four-year-old alter ego named 'Polly' between dramatic and sudden spells of restless sleep; Goddard meets her when she's already been hospitalised. A third personality, 'Louise', emerges during Norma's hypnosis-intensive therapy."

3.21 avg rating — 19 ratings

"Frequently mentioned in passing in the older casebooks, though there's such little psychological depth in the available accounts it could be held up as proof of anything - here, as benevolent spirit possession."

3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings

"Modern book, classic case: c. 1960 - post-'Eve', pre-'Sybil'. Consists mostly of - terribly formatted: be warned - therapeutic transcripts and doctor-patient correspondence. A shining example of extremely irresponsible hypnotherapy."