Nightmare

With the help of Freeman (Flight Against Fears, etc.), Peterson and Gooch relate experiences that strain belief. A teacher in an Ontario, Calif., high school, Peterson befriended 15-year-old Gooch when the girl went into a fugue and was taken to a psychiatric hospital. Later the teacher met Harold and Diane Gaffney, social workers who cared for the teenager and who witnessed the phenomenon when other personalitieshelpful and inimicaltook over Gooch. Peterson involved herself in the formidable task of helping the youngster survive the clinically described ""hysterical neurosis'' caused by traumas. While the book attempts to further our understanding of the psychiatric condition of multiple personality, it isn't wholly convincing. As causes of the patient's problems, we're told, for example, that a baby sitter repeatedly scrubbed two-year-old Nancy with Lysol; at six, the child was raped by a brother-and-sister team of neighbors and, at 15, by a stranger. One is left wondering why the child's mother knew only of the last brutal assault. 25,000 first printing; TV rights to NBC; Troll Book Club selection. (January)