#plurality research

Plurality, often also called multiplicity, is "having more than one self in the mind and body" (Eve & Parry, 2021).

Plurality "is not a diagnosis" (Eve, et al., 2023) and is "a broader concept than DID" (Christensen, 2022).

Plurality is "a broad term, which encompasses a range of experiences" because "people have individual conceptualizations of what it means to be ‘more than one’" (Eve, et al., 2023).

Plurality is "a term coined to be more inclusive than only that of traumagenic multiplicity" (Christensen, 2022).

Not all people who experience plurality will identify as a 'plural' or 'multiple.' Plurality is a useful umbrella term for the experience of more-than-oneness "but not necessarily a term reflective of one's identity or self-expression" (Christensen, 2022).

"[N]ot everyone who identifies as multiple will want or require mental health intervention for the condition they experience" (Eve, et al., 2023).

The concept of non-traumagenic plurality does not hurt DID research. "[T]he research confirming DID as a trauma-based disorder is doing just that: confirming traumagenic DID, the disorder, not Plurality, the identity . . . Distinguishing between the two does not need to invalidate either" (Christensen, 2022).

The idea that plurality is inherently disordered is a product of Western culture. "Within Western linear frameworks . . . there has been an emphasis on the ‘healthy self’ being integrated and whole" (Eve & Parry, 2021). "In indigenous cultures, esp. shamanic societies, a polypsychism (i.e. many selves) prevails" (Scharfetter, 2008).

April 23, 2025

Voices by Tanya Luhrmann

They scanned a small sample of people who, despite not having trauma or any mental health condition, developed distinct multiple identities during meditation. The brain scans showed activation patterns in some of the same areas of the brain that are also seen in DID as well as the dissociative symptoms of PTSD.

This supports the hypothesis that plurality exists on a continuum from healthy to disordered!

I'm super excited to see more studies like this in the future. It will be invaluable in deepening our understanding of plurality, dissociation, and the brain.

Here's a link to the study. From the abstract:

"[E]ven within the Plural community, Plurality is a broader concept than DID, and that is understood by Plurals who claim no trauma history. Furthermore, the research confirming DID as a trauma-based disorder is doing just that: confirming traumagenic DID, the disorder, not Plurality, the identity."

Source: The online community: DID and plurality.

"The importance of understanding how multiplicity differs from clinical experiences, such as DID, is vital . . . for some people clinical criteria are essential and align to experiences, while for others a more holistic understanding is required, which allows for acceptance of non-clinical experiences."

Source: “Here’s Dissociative Identity Disorder, and we’re not that”: a constructivist grounded theory exploration of multiplicity experiences.

"Based on the findings of this review, a novel and synthesized definition of multiplicity is offered as the experience of having more than one ‘self’ in the mind or body, which can involve having different genders, ages, memories and personalities but without the assumption of the presence of distress. This experience differs from DID definitions due to the absence of amnesia, distress and impaired functioning, highlighting the variance in conceptualizations across the continuum."

Source: Conceptualizing multiplicity spectrum experiences: A systematic review and thematic synthesis

"In working with research subjects under hypnosis, we have found that individuals who show no sign of mental illness may nonetheless manifest segmented divisions in their personalities that may act like 'covert' multiple personalities. However, the boundaries that separate them from other such states are more permeable and are not necessarily maladaptive. These parts often have awareness for one another but retain their individual senses of identity."

Source: Clinical Perspectives on Multiple Personality Disorder

"Our definition of dissociation pertains to a division of the personality in the context of trauma. We are aware that this division may also occur in hypnosis and mediumship."

Source: Dissociation in Trauma: A New Definition and Comparison with Previous Formulations.

"The DSM-5 (APA, 2013, p.292) states that DID involves a '[d]isruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession.' Whereas possession states can relate to DID, these states may also be more benign part of spiritual practice."

Source: The Trinity of Trauma: Ignorance, Fragility, and Control.

"Even if we restrict our focus to the 'alternate identity' type of possession, we find that its domain is quit large. It includes phenomena such as mediumship and channeling, glossolalia and non-possession types of dissociative identity disorder."

Source: Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: Past, Present, Future.

"This gives rise to the familiar symptoms of schizophrenia. In the case of delusions of thought insertion, for example, it is precisely because one part of the brain generates a thought that is representationally discontinuous with mental contents being produced elsewhere that the patient judges it to be alien, and hence disowns it. What we see here is a partial disintegration of the self, but not in the sense of the self failing to be a single thing—on the multi-track view it was never that in the first place—rather, in the sense that the many self-directed representations produced by the brain no longer hang together as a coherent system."

Source: The multiplicity of consciousness and the emergence of the self.

"[D]issociative disorders are etiologically linked to history of trauma (Dalenberg et al., 2012). Yet, dissociation is considered to range on a continuum from transient everyday experiences like daydreaming, to disintegrative attentional processes, to psychiatric disorders (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986; Myerson & Konichezy, 2009). Moreover, although the common core of dissociative disorders is alternation in consciousness, alternations in consciousness can be considered part of normative behavior (Steele, Dorahy, Van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2009). . . . Only a few empirical studies have explored dissociative tendencies among channelers. In these studies, the channelers were compared to people diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). The conclusion was that in DID, dissociation is a trauma-based defense mechanism, whereas in the case of channeling the dissociation is a learned and functional use of altered states of consciousness."

Source: Dissociation and the Experience of Channeling: Narratives of Israeli Women Who Practice Channeling

"Our results and their contrast with the available data on fMRI in DIDs allows to draw the hypothesis of a continuum between healthy mind – where multiple identities may coexist at unconscious level and may sometimes emerge to the consciousness – and DIDs, where multiple personalities emerge as dissociated, ostensibly autonomous components yielding impaired functioning, subject’s loss of control and suffering."

Source: Dissociative identity as a continuum from healthy mind to psychiatric disorders: Epistemological and neurophenomenological implications approached through hypnosis

"While we recognise that dissociation is a real and adaptive response to trauma, we do not recognise that all persons experiencing plural identities are disordered. We propose that the experience of multiple self-identities is a legitimate expression of being human."

"We can look upon the human mind as like a symphony orchestra. It is a complex whole, constituted of multiple part-selves with their own ongoing experience, each doing what it does best under the organizing leadership of an executive, the conductor. This is functional co-consciousness, and does not require adherence to any one particular psychodynamic model" (p. 104).

It's cool to see how plurality was explored and distinguished from complex dissociative disorders back then. Dr. Beahrs's ideas are very similar to ego state theory...specifically the concept that the human mind is naturally made up of multiple parts. This is a common idea. A lot of modern theories and treatments operate on this idea, like structural dissociation theory and internal family systems therapy.

Some people see the "parts" of self in more metaphorical or abstract ways. Like, simply a label of organization. But in this paper they're acknowledged as conscious entities.

"By co-consciousness, I refer to the existence within a single human organism of more than one consciously experiencing psychological entity, each with some sense of its own identity or selfhood, relatively separate and discrete from other similar entities, and with separate conscious experiences occurring simultaneously with one another within this human organism" (p. 100).

Dr. Beahrs suggests that the parts of the self share a sense of unity, cohesion, and continuity no matter which part is in control. Severe dissociation can impair this, which is what we see in dissociative disorders like DID. Information can't be exchanged between the parts continuously. Parts may be unaware of each other. There's little cooperation and lots of conflict. Life is chaotic.

The plurality isn't the problem...the dissociation is.

"The pathology in a multiple personality is not the multiplicity per se, then, but the impairment of this organizing executive function" (p. 105).

If you believe that plurality is the natural state of the mind, than the logical conclusion is that trying to make someone "get rid of" their system would be extremely harmful (and probably impossible). Dr. Beahrs emphasizes that treating CDDs should focus on lessening dissociation and amnesiac barriers. It should be about bringing harmony to the system, not erasing them.

Another thing he brings up in the paper is that people who don't have CDDs may also struggle with similar issues with plurality and dissociation. Dr. Beahrs notes that much of the same therapeutic techniques can be used to help them.