PluralWiki: the Etymology of "Multiple" as a Stand-Alone Adjective/Noun

[lb_lee]

Multiple

"Two or more people who use the same body; The experience of sharing the body with others." (Dark Personalities, 2001) This is far from the only way it's been defined, but it seems to be the one most in use.

Quick Details

Coined By: Shirley Ardell Mason? (AKA: Sibyl)
Time Used: 1973? - Present
Locations Used: EVERYWHERE.

 

Early Non-Usage

Before the seventies, it doesn't appear that "multiple" was used as a stand-alone adjective or noun for plural folks.  Prince's 1906 "Dissociation of a Personality" didn't use it--and in fact, resisted using even the full "multiple personality" terminology: "a more correct term is disintegrated personality, for each secondary personality is a part only of a normal whole self" (pg. 3, emphasis his).

The term was similarly unused in Thigpen and Cleckley's the 3 Faces of Eve; only "multiple personality" is used, never "multiple" alone.  Unchecked but worthy of perusal are Sizemore's Strangers in My Body: The Final Face of Eve (1958) and the Chris Costner Sizemore Papers at Duke University, which covers as far back as 1952, when she was diagnosed.

Until then, the earliest citation is 1973.

Shirley Ardell Mason, AKA Sybil, 1973

Sybil appears to have the earliest reference to "multiple" as a stand-alone adjective or noun, and it's only used twice in the entire book, the first time by Mason herself.  When her cat responds to different system members differently, she quips, "Maybe Capri [the cat] is multiple too." (pg. 260) Roughly two paragraphs later, there's, "In dreams Sybil was more nearly one than at any other time. [...] Her dreams reverted to the original events that had caused her to become multiple and that in waking life were reproduced in her other selves." These are the sole references.

It is unclear whether Mason was the original coiner of the term, but so far she seems to be the earliest citation available.

Henry Dana Hawksworth and Ralph B. Allison, 1977

In 1977, reporter Donna Joy Newman seemed unfamiliar with the term "multiple," but she references and credits its use to Ralph B. Allison, the therapist of Henry Dana Hawksworth, the multiple she was reporting on: "Allison [...] had seen 'multiples,' as he calls them, before" (Newman, 1977, paragraph 43).

Ralph Allison states that he started treating multiples in 1972, and reports on his website decades later: "In the 1970s, when I started meeting with other therapists of 'multiples' (the term we all came to use for patients with MPD), we informally agreed to call the disorder 'Multiple Personality Disorder' or MPD for short" (1996).

Thus, it may be a reasonable guess that the term "multiple" grew into more common use in the 1970s, either directly due to the influence of Sybil, or due to more multiples crawling out of the woodwork and the term being an obvious shortening of "multiple personality."

Citations

Allison, Ralph B. (1996) Definition of Multiple Personality Disorder [web page]. http://www.dissociation.com/index/definition/ Internet Archive.  Retrieved 2019/10/11 from https://web.archive.org/web/19980224062209/http://www.dissociation.com/index/definition/

Chris Costner Sizemore Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.  Request material at: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/sizemore/

Dark Personalities. (2001, May 19). Terminology [web page]. http://www.darkpersonalities.com/terminology.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/10/10 from https://web.archive.org/web/20010519115202/http://darkpersonalities.com/terminology.htm

Newman, Donna Joy. (1977, June 23). 'I led five lives'--the incredible story of Henry Hawksworth. Chicago Tribune, p. 15 & 18.  Retrieved 2016/1/8 from http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1977/06/23/page/15/article/tempo but no longer publicly accessible.

Prince, Morton. (1906). The Dissociation of a Personality: A Biographical Study of Abnormal Psychology.  New York, NY: Longmans, Green, and Co.  Retrieved 2019/10/11 from https://archive.org/details/dissociationofpe1906prin/page/n6

Schreiber, Flora Rheta. (1973). Sybil.  Washington, D.C.: Regnery.

Thigpen, Corbett, and Hervey Cleckley. (1957). The 3 Faces of Eve. New York, NY: Popular Library.

Comments

[talewisefellowship]

I was actually amazed to learn that the word 'dissociation' was apparently associated with multiplicity as far back in history as 1906!!!

--Hikaru

[lb_lee]

Yup! I admit, I haven't had it in me to read the whole thing yet (it's LOOOONG, and my shoulder is weak), only do targeted searchs, but one day I need to, since AFAIK it contains the first multi autobio!