Title

Thigpen, C.H. & Cleckley, H. (1954) A case of multiple personality.

Author
Thigpen and Cleckley

Keywords
Dissociate identity disorder, hypnosis, observation, EEG tests, intelligence tests

Aim
The aim was to create an account of a 25 year old womans psychotherapeutic treatment due to her referral to Thigpen and Clecky because of severe blinding headaches.

Sample One 25 year old patient receiving psychotherapeutic treatment. Method

The method used in this study was a case study that involved tests e.g. EEG, ink blot tests, memory and intelligence tests and hypnosis. Interviews with the patient, her family and her different personalities.

Results
Eve appeared to be having memory problems such as forgetting trips and being unaware that she sent her therapist a letter and denied sending it even though her handwriting was the same as the letters apart from the last paragraph which looked child like. She had also reported that in a conversation to the therapist she recently had been hearing voices address her, during this conversation eve raised her hands to her head as if in pain, then suddenly her personality changed and she smiled at the therapist and greeted him in a brighter voice Hi there, Doc! This was Eve Whites other identity Eve Black she was basically the opposite of Eve white, where Eve. W was stressed, compassionate and kind Eve. B was a much more self indulgent flirty and lacked compassion for her daughter and husband, and also seemed to delight in the fact that when she would pop out from Eve. W that she wouldnt remember what Eve. B had done. Eve. B used this fact to get Eve. W in to trouble on many occasions. Even as fair back to her child hood when, Eve. B started to engage in mischief but due to Eve .w inability to recollect what happened was punished for lying. They both seemed to act independently and had different body language, speech and intelligence Eve White obtained an IQ of 110 and Eve Black 104. Eve started to recover from her headaches as black became more repressed. however the head pain came back with the emergence of a new personality, Jane. Who was basically in the middle of the two others in terms of personalities she was more responsible than Eve. B but more confident than Eve. W which led therapists to decide making her the dominant personality would lead to Eves health being better as well as a happier life.

Conclusions.Thigpen and Cleckley were convinced that they had witnessed an example of multiple personality. Although Thigpen and Cleckley do not point to the cause of MPD, the received wisdom is that MPD is usually a response to child abuse - a way for the individual to protect him or herself. Issues/implication It doesnt explain why mpd happens also it lacks reliability as it only had one pp Also it would have been easy for her to lie, however it would have been hard to act like that for such long periods of time Usefulness/application It shows how complicated a brain can be even having the ability to change the way it functions as shown by the eeg testing.