The Magic Faughter: 9a Memoir of Living with Multiple Personality Disorder

After several years of intensive psychotherapy, French professor Jane Phillips (a pseudonym) was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (MPD), a little-understood condition believed to result from childhood trauma. Faced with unpleasant situations, Phillips explains, a child chemically predisposed to dissociate will create multiple selves as a coping device. An incest survivor, Phillips has long been host to a multitude of personae ``because one self could not cope with all there was to be coped with.'' Here she offers a frank and articulate account of how the disorder has shaped her daily life and of her struggle to achieve integration--the process whereby various selves coalesce into a single, stable identity. At times painful to read, this memoir yields compelling insights into the difficulties of confronting and overcoming a debilitating disorder. The author's persistent determination not to let MPD thwart a successful career or become the defining force in her life is inspirational. (Oct.)