Talk:Multiplicity (psychology)

Expanding this article
While working on this article, I plan to add more about the different kinds of multiplicity that exist (8 types), and expand on those. I also plan on expanding on what multiplicity is, and how it can be treated if it is having a negative impact. With sources of course. Echilcot12 (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, . The source you used is not a reliable source, the text you added is not verified by that source you listed, and it's self is not grammatical English.  Please review Wikipedia's page on reliable sources, and make sure any text you added is supported by the source. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 07:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Information to Add
I plan on adding some more information from a book that has already been used as a source on this page. I will include more information about some of the important people in the history of multiplicity and how multiplicity came to be what it is today. I will post more specific information as I continue to work on the article. Echilcot12 (talk) 23:09, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Topic
What exactly is the topic of this article? It seems to be some sort of a vague concept of a person having a different personality at different times/situations. And then there's suddenly the sentence about "Authors who have developed the idea that multiple personality is normal rather than pathological" -- which clearly seems to refer to MPD/DID, which is not the topic of this article. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 13:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Also not the topic of this article: "a group of people sharing a single body"/"headmates". We talked about that in the AfD ("The delete votes are solidly based on policy with respect to the orginal creation, but the good Colonel has transformed the article so its now about multiple persona as they are used by regular people."). — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 13:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Good questions: the article is a mess, I don't know what it pretends to be about, and another round at AFD might not be a bad idea.  Otherwise, if you can find a merge target, I'd support a merge proposal.  I don't know if anything can be gleaned from User:Echilcot12/sandbox (a student editor planning to expand the article). Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not an expert so I'm not going to define what this multiplicity is, but I'm just gonna say that I strongly advise editors to keep in mind what it is that they're writing about, and not derail into other topics. For example that draft^ mentions "amnesic switching" which is probably a quality of DID. Basically, don't use this article here as an alternative place where to write about different understandings/views of MPD/DID. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read through it but I think this paper talks about the topic of this article. ("One difficulty in describing the “self” is that there may not be a single thing to be described. Rather, recent research suggests that the self is a multiplicity of related, yet separable, processes and contents." ... "Put more positively, what these studies seem to be saying is that the self is a multiplicity, and thus the idea of localizing an entity called the “self” is a nonstarter.") — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:00, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

More possible sources?: — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Psychotherapy in light of internal multiplicity -- "The view that the self has multiple parts and that these appear in people seeking psychotherapy—and people conducting psychotherapy—is shared by clinicians of various orientations and supported by psychological research. It is useful for clinicians to think of patients as multifaceted and pay attention to the changes between facets that occur during therapy." ... "The aim of this issue is to present and illustrate psychotherapies that treat the self as multiple. The authors, representing various schools, discuss how to conduct treatment in line with this assumption."
 * Vocal manifestations of internal multiplicity: Mary's voices -- "According to the assimilation model, personality may be considered as a community of internal voices representing traces of previous experiences. This study addressed the hypothesis that a person’s internal voices sound different from each other. /--/ These findings support a literal view of internal multiplicity, consistent with a modular organization of experiential information within personality." ... "This study addressed the hypothesis that people actually speak in recognizably different ways depending on which of their internal voices is speaking. If, as the assimilation model suggests, voices encompass whole experiences, with meaning and expressive aspects merged together, then it should be possible to observe differences within one person’s ways of self-expression, including distinctive vocal characteristics. Put another way, insofar as internal voices reflect distinct experiences, they should not only say different things, but they should sound different from each other."
 * Oh crap, the above two articles were available when I posted this, but now they're behind paywall. I came here to say that both of those articles mentioned MPD (though I might remember wrong and can't confirm) but that it was a good thing since they clarified how the disorder is a separate concept from general multiplicity of personalities. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 14:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Having had several decades of first-hand experience with mental illness and the condition of multiplicity in particular, I would ask the editors of this article to focus mainly on what the condition is/involves as well as the difference between it and MPD/DID. I would also ask you to "err" on the side of sharing as much information as possible, in the traditional Wikipedia format, rather than trying to be miserly/overly concise. Humans dealing with their condition(s) urgently need an unbiased source of information for themselves and their intimates. Also,unless you have dealt with mental illness personally (friends or family do NOT count as this), you have little to no idea how much stigma surrounds mental illness, especially the lesser-known types. Wikipedia is an ideal provider in helping to reduce this stigma through knowledge.Kailasa108 (talk) 05:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Missing page numbers
, you have added text cited to a book without including the page numbers from the book. Please address this by adding the page numbers. You can do that by replacing every instance in the article of with , for example,. Please respond on this talk page so other editors know you have seen the posts. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 14:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Making a More Cohesive Article
There is a divide in the discussion of multiplicity between its view as solely a pathological/diagnosable condition and the belief that it also existing as a normal psychological phenomenon. Often times it is due to the belief that multiplicity is inherently mentally unhealthy, however there are great difficulties in discussing the great variation of multiplicity seeming to silence the experience of a different type of multiplicity.

This article should be able to neutrally describe different types and causes of multiplicity without confusing the reader. I am finding difficulty with this article because the article lacks information yet is already getting verbose.

Here is a quote from the article at the time of typing this comment: "Systems are developed throughout childhood before the ages of 6 to around 9 due to extensive trauma." This statement greatly contrasts the experiences of systems who gained members, for example, through modern/western tulpamancy or simply trauma at another age. The statement does not offer flexibility from this single viewpoint on systems, even if the author did not intend it to appear that way.

There is a lot of valuable information that can be shared from medical research about multiplicity from trauma, dissociation, and identity disorders that should be used to talk about relevant causes of multiplicity. The common belief among psychologists or medical practitioners that multiplicity is a pathology or harmful coping mechanism should be discussed, however when writing this article it needs to be written in a way that also acknowledges alternative experiences. The article most definitely includes the neurodivergent position, the discussion of pathological multiplicity should express more awareness of this and use language that does not contradict it.

More structure in the article on where to put information would also help in reading flow. Combining structure with conscientious wording would allow topics to be written with less need to clarify what cause of multiplicity is or isn't being discussed.

Instead of having the 3 sections "History," "Systems," and "Media Portrayal" which are not well-structured internally and bounce between what is focused on, there could be (not necessarily in this order) sections that go something like:

·Terminology, both academically and informally ·Disorders, in which the text would be assumed to focus on diagnoses and their criteria in the context of psychology and its opinions without needing to constantly refer back to neurodivergence, ·Causes, (with a lot of internal organization!) talking about the different ways one becomes a system, including those leading to diagnoses, but also it happening without any stressors, intentionally becoming a system, etc, ·Neurodivergence, discussing the opinion and experience that having head mates is not inherently pathological, that systems that were formed due unintentionally to stressors or intentionally to cope aren't either, what matters is working towards the well being and functioning of the person, ·History, about the recording/evidence of this phenomenon, worldwide cultural/spiritual beliefs and change over time ·Theories, about division of the mind/consciousness, ·Media Portrayal, stereotyping and its consequences

This phenomenon is also lacking in academic description that encompasses the huge diversity of this phenomenon. I am familiar with multiplicity in medicine and neurodivergency however I do not know about this in great detail, I wish I could add more information about eg dissociative identity myself and make sure it does not clash with the rest of the article. It's unfortunate a lot of neurodivergent information sources are not academic enough for Wikipedia.

If anyone adds info or restructures the article take my thoughts into consideration, if someone has ideas that don't involve a lot organizing I would be interested. I do intend to do this myself in the near future, without information loss. CastellamareAsh (talk) 21:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CastellamareAsh (talk • contribs) 09:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * This article needs quite a bit of work CastellamareAsh, and if you improve it I think it shall be well received.--Mvqr (talk) 11:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Parking some potential sources
Ribáry, Gergő, et al. "Multiplicity: An explorative interview study on personal experiences of people with multiple selves." Frontiers in psychology 8 (2017): 938. - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468408/ - explores multiplicity(rather than DID specifically) as a distinct thing.

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-we-can-learn-about-respect-and-identity-from-plurals - Probably the best source, clearly takes up how plural communities view themselves as people, distinct from DID etc.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/otherkin/ - Clearly takes up plurality and plural communities

Boag, Simon. "Addressing mental plurality: Justification, objections and logical requirements of strongly partitive accounts of mind." Realism and Psychology. Brill, 2011. 727-754. -https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291146686_Addressing_mental_plurality_Justification_objections_and_logical_requirements_of_strongly_partitive_accounts_of_mind - potential accounts of plurality? Probably too heavy to use.

https://narratively.com/the-mystical-mind-sharing-lives-of-tulpamancers/ - association between tulpas and plurality

https://movieweb.com/split-movie-removed-netflix-petition/ - points out that plurality as a community exists(in parallel with DID) and also talks about Split controversy for the media portrayal part

Luhrmann, Tanya Marie, et al. "Beyond trauma: a multiple pathways approach to auditory hallucinations in clinical and nonclinical populations." Schizophrenia Bulletin 45.Supplement_1 (2019): S24-S31. - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330811751_Beyond_Trauma_A_Multiple_Pathways_Approach_to_Auditory_Hallucinations_in_Clinical_and_Nonclinical_Populations - A study alluding to the idea that all multiplicity isn't caused by trauma (mentions dissociation/DID in that regard) Seteleechete (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

These sources do not really fulfill WP:RELIABILITY for a topic like this; these sources seem to skew heavily towards pop culture sources, which makes me question the WP:VERIFIABILITY of these sources. birdn4t0r (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

NPOV/Request for Expert
This article has me a bit confused.

As per the previous discussion in Articles for deletion/Multiplicity (psychology) the notability of this article is in relation to the general psychological concept of Multiplicity. Whereas (and I recognise that this is a sensitive area) the article seems to focus on a subculture, or a certain neurodiversity community, and how they perceive Multiplicity.

This in itself may be worth an article on Wikipedia if it's notable and sources exist. But, what seems to have happened is that an article on a psychological concept has been effectively repurposed to cover a concept that it was not initially intended to. Further, a lot of the content (for example the entire "Systems" section that I Just removed) seemed to be the result of Original Research, without sources.

I think there's certainly an NPOV issue here, which requires some attention. The last year's worth of edits seem to be drawing the article further away from it's original focus.

--Vitalis196 (talk) 04:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The way I see it the multiplicity(psychology) is information surrounding the concept of being multiple identities/personalities/people sharing a body(thus the psychological idea of multiplicity) which would naturally include discussion about the groups that refer to themselves in this way and their view on the concept, the history of the concept and well everything surrounding it(which can be sourced anyway), rather than a specific narrow area within that very concept(like specific psychological mechanism). Seteleechete (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I have to raise the concern about what counts as an NPOV or an expert on this topic. As a community that's basically arisen as an alternative or even oppositional space to psychiatric attempts to classify the phenomenon, I'd worry that anyone deemed an expert would be the exact kind of person to state that such a thing doesn't exist. Additionally, I think it's more likely that this article has always at least intended to be about that community/identity/subculture/what have you, given the nature of the first edit summary ("References requested, the information is suppressed by the psychiatric community") and the tone of the content. So, I'm also of the opinion that pivoting to an article on the subculture, if that's the best word for it, is probably the appropriate solution (and I can personally assert that there are plenty of good sources out there). Would that require the article be deleted an a new one made, or are we able to salvage this one by renaming it? – vagabondsun  (it/its + he/him) &#124;  talk  ✨  contrib  19:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * As has been said before though, this article is about the psychological concept of multiplicity, rather than any particular community or subculture. This was ground covered during the first AFD process a few years ago. Since concepts like Otherkin have articles on Wikipedia I see no reason why this community can't be notable in it's own right.  But this isn't the place for it, it's not what this article is about. --Vitalis196 (talk) 15:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You seem to be confusing plurality for the community surrounding it. Plurality is in itself a psychological concept(also going by multiplicity) which happens to have a community surrounding it. As such it's fitting under this title and I see nothing to say(particularly since you even want to delete the article altogether) that it wouldn't fit here. I also still don't think that plurality and personality style aspects are so far apart that they need to have separate articles though again I don't necessarily oppose such a notion. As such I have restored the article. Also again I don't really see any clear consensus on the old afd for what the article is about(and I don't see the relevance, either way it kinda appeared as contentious as it is now anyway). Seteleechete (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I, too, am feeling confusion - because of the discussion here. Previously, I have mainly used Wikipedia as a start place or "jumping off point" to learn about a particular topic. The discussion thus far results in my thinking that an article can only cover one aspect or point of the matter at hand. I disagree with that view. For a quick example of my thinking, look up the Wikipedia article on "animal rights". Following the "one article/one subject" approach, I might miss out on a topic's multiple aspects and/or have to bounce around to multiple articles to chase down one related aspect at a time. Ugh. If nothing else, if the amount of info on the concept of psychological multiplicity becomes unwieldy, the related aspects should/could at least be listed in the "See Also" section of the original article. (That amounts to my conditional agreement with Setellchete.) On the other hand, I disagree with a couple of Vagabondsun's statements. Firstly, an expert's input (if nothing else as from a referenced source) is critical. In under two minutes, I was able to find over 2 dozen articles on psychological multiplicity, by psychologists and/or their organizations. While it might currently prove difficult to actually find an expert to provide up-to-the-minute info on the subject (the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing domestic terrorism here in the USA has more citizens receiving psychological therapy than ever before); but maybe an educator could be a source. Regardless, after the main aspect is covered,there could be additional sections on: 1) groups and organizations dealing with mental health (such as the CDC, NAMI, or MHA) and their view of the topic could be briefly included; as well as 2) a mention of those folks/groups who criticize the concept altogether.Kailasa108 (talk) 05:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not mistaking multiplicity for the community surrounding it, but I am critical of accounts of how one community perceives this being presented as a matter of fact. ″Many people who experience multiplicity do so as a "system" of multiple, mostly-independent selves, each with a name, thoughts, emotions, behavioral patterns, preferences, and memories, along with a gender and sexual orientation.[10] Referring to themselves as "plural".[7]″ To dissect this extract, "Many People" is a weasel word with unclear meaning, it vaguely suggests that the explanation of multiplicity that follows is a generalisable account of how it is experienced. However this is absolutely not the case for everyone who experienced multiplicity of some form. I know people personally who have perceived other people and personalities inside of them, people with Dissociative identity disorder report perceiving all kinds of phenomena, from voices in their head to believing themselves possessed by spirits. These experiences are well documented and have a lot of cultural significance. In contrast the idea that multiplicity is only a situation where people experience a stable system of multiple individuals sharing their head, are accepting of this, and refer to themselves as plural, is a very specific, limited understanding of the concept. Vitalis196 (talk) 19:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on psychology, but as someone who knows a fair number of plural people I thought I'd chime in. It seems to me that there are really two related issues here. The first one is a scoping issue. Simply put, the concepts we're dealing with here have boundaries that are less than well defined. DID overlaps with psychological multiplicity, and both overlap with the cultural aspects involved. Currently, we have no article other than this one dealing with the cultural aspects, so it's getting used for those despite the fact that some people think they're out of scope. The second issue is a sourcing issue. There is a dearth of reliable sources about plurality/multiplicity. There are tons of sources, but by Wikipedia's standards, they aren't reliable. That situation appears to be slowly changing, but until it changes more fully, Wikipedia will not be the place to adjust the subject in depth. Note that some people in past discussions I've read about this have painted this as a WP:FRINGE issue, and I don't really think that's a fair characterization - a lot of the experiences involved here are not the sort of thing that can be scientifically studied, and many of the aspects that can be are just starting to have studies come out. Nevertheless, the general WP:V problem remains. Tamwin (talk) 07:42, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Just saw this discussion, but I noticed that the article lacks the Expert template; should I add it in? birdn4t0r (talk) 05:01, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Neutrality of Article
I saw that the "neutrality" of the article is under question. I feel those that are questioning this need THEMSELVES to provide more information as to why they feel this way. Currently, from the previous posts on the matter, it would almost seem as if a topic should NOT be included in Wikipedia unless there is/are published/recognized source(s) that refute or criticise the information shared in the article. Kailasa108 (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)kailasa108

"Low Importance" ranking of Article
I was dismayed to see that the article is listed as "low importance"; even if that ranking is based on its current poor style. To me, that is tantamount to a male, civilian, invertebrate biologist ranking an article on sexual assault in the American military as "unimportant" because it was poorly written. I, myself, have educated a number of therapists about psychological multiplicity, because it is not widely known (enough). Because of that, I ask that this article be given at least a "mid" rating. Kailasa108 (talk) 06:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The article being rated of low importance is not passing judgement on the significance of the condition (if you consider it a condition) or the affect it has on people. It's simply a judgement of how important the article is to Wikiproject Psychology. Vitalis196 (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Summary and suggestions
I have decided to make this section to try to summarize what was mentioned in the previous sections, and give what I think is a fair assessment of what to do. Essentially from what I've seen the main arguments boils down to a few things 1. what is the topic? from the name and current writing of the page it seems to be about plurality/multiplicity which was designed by people with conditions such as DID OSDD-1 and OSDD-2 to essentially be a blanket term for those who experience the state of being 2 or more entities inside one psychical body, due to some considering the psychological diagnoses to not cover all possible origins/ways to be plural. but due to it having the psychology tag it could also be interpreted as a more strict purely psychological version of the idea instead. 2. lack of neutrality. due to the disagreements between those who identify as Plural and psychological experts and those in the psychological field as a whole it is very difficult to find a neutral ground that takes both views into account. If it's trying to be about the plural community then it should focus on that, and the latter more psychological view should be mostly put in the DID page of Wikipedia. if it is supposed to be a purely psychological lense on the issue then this page should reflect that and multiplicity/plurality should get its own page most likely not under psychology. 3. lack of sources. due to how diverse and ununified plurality/multiplicity is it is very difficult to find sources that match Wikipedia standards for reliable sources. This also goes for experts due to it being a culture that has a large level of distrust for psychological experts it's hard to find experts which would be unbiased in this topic. in conclusion: this page tries to cover several interconnected issues which should probably either be different pages altogether or different subsections of the same page which would be about it without a psychology focus, and due to the heated nature of the topic and the decentralization of the community surrounding it is hard to find unbiased sources and experts which make Wikipedia standards. I would personally say the best option would be to have two pages, one exclusively about it from a scientific/psychological angle and one about it from the angle of those who identify as it and what they say. since the two clash so much trying to find compromise between the two would most likely anger both sides. on the inability to find good sources and experts I would say that finding unbiased sources and experts is going to be the most difficult but most nessecary part of this. Aeonic maiden (talk) 10:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC) Aeonic maiden (talk) 10:15 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Recent Uncontested Removal of Bulk of Content
The bulk of this article was removed in 2 edits in 2021 without attempts to improve it as discussed on this page. As someone without this condition but familiar with advocates of it from social media, I personally think the article deserves to exist in a more complete form with most of the original content before those edits, preferably with many of the improvements discussed on this talk page. I would say it should focus on the (admittedly very recent and lacking many "reliable" sources) grassroots movement to normalize plural systems as a not necessarily pathological mode of human psychology, as opposed to just the "rights movement" of people who accept a DID diagnosis. One fictional example can be found in the character(s) of "the Gang" in the novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel), which as a non-expert I think is relatively unique in its portrayal of multiplicity as a potentially useful cognitive tool and not just a disorder to be remedied. If this article is being merged into the DID page, I think the idea of multiplicity/plural systems deserves a separate (or much-expanded "Rights Movement") section discussing this idea, as well as at least mentioning its relation to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypostatic_model_of_personality and attempts to intentionally induce similar mental states like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:193:8300:71:3961:2684:4CBF:A032 (talk) 05:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Sources need to be verifiable and reliable, to maintain WP:NPOV; self-published/user-generated/primary sources are not really in the scope of an encyclopedia. Also, I do wonder about WP:NOTABILITY, too. birdn4t0r (talk) 04:58, 14 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you're on about; I'm pretty sure I removed all the self-published sources. All that's left are academic journal sources and reliable secondary sources from news sites. If you're still seeing any self-published or unreliable sources that I missed, then by all means, please point them out and remove them.


 * Anyway, this page is in kind of a bad place where its content and indeed the entire validity of its topic is being perpetually disputed, but it's not had enough traffic or attention for anyone to come to a clear consensus (certainly not one that has stood). For my part, I maintain firmly that the topic is notable and the sources are there, it's just that the topic hasn't received significant mainstream media coverage, and the academic sources that exist for it are not the most thorough, and also several of them directly admit that more attention by experts needs to be given towards plurality as a social identity and not simply as a pathologized condition. Further, because not all of these sources use the same terminology in covering the subject (though there is some common terminology between any of them, like with the Vulture source that doesn't call it "plural" but does use the terms "headmate," "headspace," "front" and etc, and comes to a similar conclusion as the Vice source). Also, as for your edit summary expressing confusion about if this is a medical or culture topic; it is both. There is a subculture of people who identify as being plural (which is undercovered in the media, as I've said) and that is, or at least should be, the main topic of the article, while the recognized mental disorders that may accompany the experiences that these people describe, and expert opinions on it, should be a subtopic of this article.


 * I'd also like to remind everyone editing to keep WP:OBSCURE in mind. silviaASH (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within)  11:13, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4, you're exaggerating with this tag. Three AfDs, sure--one was ten years ago, the second had only four participants, and the last was kept immediately and unanimously, after being nominated by someone with 558 edits in main space. The history of the article shows no evidence of controversy either--there's a hundred edits since January of 2021, and only two minor conflicts since then: one by an editor with some 80 article edits who hasn't been back since January of 2021, and one a series of edits by an SPA which was quickly reverted. There is no controversy here, only normal article development perhaps spurred by the last AfD. That's it. That's not controversy. Drmies (talk) 14:07, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry if this is a little bit of a necro-post, but you do make a good point RE:[WP:OBSCURE]. I personally think there could be better sources for cultural/psychological concepts than Vice or Vulture, since their "domains of expertise," so-to-speak, seem to be more in the realm of broader, mainstream pop-culture topics than with more-niche subcultures, especially when cultural and spiritual/religious concepts are involved, such as with this topic; of course, this might just be because of my own negative feelings about outlets like Vice or Vulture (I find that their articles tend to be fairly surface-level "pop" explanations of the topics they cover, which is fine for pop culture, especially when it comes to not being too invasive in coverage of public figures), so you should probably take that into account lol. Unfortunately, consistently-reliable non-primary, third-party sources tend to be a little hard to find when the subculture is so niche, especially those that are predominantly-online (as many plural communities seem to be), so that probably complicates things a bit. birdn4t0r (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Renaming the Article
The article should be renamed "Plurality (psychology)" as plural is a much more common usage by those within relevant communities than multiplicity. Multiplicity should still redirect to this article, however. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WhatIsAPoggers (talk • contribs) 01:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I've reverted the bold move pending RM. —  Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:20, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. I'm not an expert, but most cases I've seen of this movement/community (and it is an established one) use that nomenclature. Yasuda Sayo (talk) 06:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 7 November 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Discussion tends to opposing the page move. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 00:17, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Multiplicity (psychology) → Dissociative multiplicity – The vast majority of academic sources that I'm able to find treat the experience of one person experiences themselves as more than one person as a form of dissociation, rather than as something unique. The phrase typically used for this is dissociative multiplicity (or simply as multiplicity), and that seems to be the subject of this article. There's actually substantial writings about this sort of phenomenon in children and it's the subject of Ph.D. theses among other sorts of things. However, the psychological literature tends to not use the term "plurality" to refer to this phenomenon; it's generally either "multiplicity" or "dissociative multiplicity". WP:TITLEDAB indicates that we should prefer to use the natural disambiguation over a parenthetical disambiguation, and the proper academic term seems to be the natural title here, so I propose that we change this page's name to Dissociative multiplicity. —  Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)


 * changing it to "Dissociative multiplicity" ignores the fact that plurality isn't experienced by Dissociative people alone. Between tulpamancy, which is spiritual in nature, and endogenic plurality, which refers to cases where the plurality does not come from dissociation or other aspects of trauma, it is more than possible for plurality to have non-traumatic origins. Changing the name runs the risk of inflating the stigma even further, as the average reader who only briefly looks over the page would connect plurality to mental disorders, and people who should be pitied, which would be harmful to those who experience plurality without earlier trauma, and even those that do have trauma, as it gives more attention to said trauma and mental disorder, rather than who they truly are. Felinefelon (talk) 17:02, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Psychology has been notified of this discussion. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. multiple selves (or personas) are not essentially dissociated from each other. An example is the subpersonalities or subselves from Internal Family Systems Model. If we move to Dissociative multiplicity, then this article would become WP:CFORK of Dissociative disorder because consequently we are going to remove non-dissociative aspects of multiplicity, such as tulpamancy and non-traumagenic/non-disordered system members (or headmates), just as Felinefelon pointed. MikutoH (talk) 20:31, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 4 April 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn. Treetoes023 (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Multiplicity (psychology) → Plurality (psychology) – The term multiplicity has different definitions in psychology based on the context, while the term plurality only has one. These are the common definitions used by the "plurality community", an example of these definitions out in the wild is at r/plural's faq page. Treetoes023 (talk) 03:46, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Definition of plurality in psychology
 * Definitions of multiplicity in psychology
 * Do you have journal sources for these rather than tulpa.io which is a self-published source? We have to go off of reliable sources rather than self-published sources by non-academics, or by Reddit communities. Lizthegrey (talk) 04:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I have been unable to find any reliable sources. I will withdraw this move request and open a new request if I find any. – Treetoes023 (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Poor Sourcing
There are two sources that are patently dubious in quality—The Vulture article and the Vice article. Both are cited to support claims that are not commonly touched in the article, but when they are relevant, it's sometimes in relation to personal experience. I've removed some, but I don't want to remove all of them unless there is some support behind it. Ideally, better sources would replace them. <em style="font-family:Lucida Handwriting;color:#FF6699">Maxx-♥ talk and coffee ☕ 19:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Does this topic even exist?
This has been so remarkably unsourceable for so long that none of the information given here seems proven or valid. Why keep it? 2600:6C40:6000:33CE:7566:116:48DD:276D (talk) 20:42, 27 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Just because you personally haven't experienced it, doesn't mean it isn't real. This is a widely common phenomenon and I suggest doing research before writing it off. 207.159.75.172 (talk) 22:21, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but it sounds completely made up, you don't just get DID from nothing, it requires prolonged childhood trauma either mental or physical over many years and is still quite rare, but now I fear it has become a trend that people have decided to jump on to sound special or just plain narcissism, we don't need it spreading any further. 82.3.131.131 (talk) 00:28, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Request to split Article
As others have said before this article is confusing I thik we should make two articles. Multiplicity(psychology) and Multiplicity(subculture). I suggest the Multiplicity(psychology) article be exclusively used for multipicity within the context of psychology and psychiatry. Whereas Multiplicity(subculture) be used to describe the modern community that grew around this concept.Kuia34 (talk ) 13:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)


 * In what way would the psychological part of the split be different from Dissociative identity disorder? Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 15:05, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Multiplicity includes a broad spectrum of concepts in psychology depending on the model of consciousness/mind your using. Dissociative identity disorder specifically refers to a dissociative disorder and while I'm sure it does have a place in the article multiplicity is broader and includes concepts which are not always related to DID . Something like Internal Family Systems Model and would be a model of mind/consciousness that falls under "Multiplicity" and theories on "polypsychism" would also fall under the Multiplicity(pyschology) article .  I was actually planning on adding stuf to this article but like others have stated before this article has is very muddled with the inclusion of community terms in relation to the subculture I believe the subculture is notable enough to have it's own articleKuia34 (talk) 15:36, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Disordered multiplicity isn't exclusive to DID, it's also occurred by OSDD-1 (OSDD-1a and OSDD-1b) and UDD. Abby Pereira (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we need to fix the issues this article has before we split it. Abby Pereira (talk) 23:00, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That's fine before we split let's make a list of things that need to be fixed within this article that gives other editors a place to start off when contributing. Once we have the other stuff fixed then we can proceed with splitting the articleKuia34 (talk) 23:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * One problem with this article is that it lacks WP:MEDRS sources for the (psychology) article you'd like to split it into or create. WithOUT such sources, I'd say this article should just be moved into Multiplicity(subculture), as the medical sources it currently has are pretty poor and low in number, meaning this is likely more a HYPOTHESIS or THEORY than an accepted diagnosis.  And depending on the medical field's view of it, it might be WP:FRINGE. --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Well it depends what counts as WP:MEDRS because I do have some sources that aren't currently in the article at the moment and those might quailify for WP:MEDRS . It should also be noted that Multiplicity is not intended to be a diagnosis it's meant to be a broader term that encompasses a wide array of phonema with it sometimes even being applied to something like imaginary friends. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00754170412331319559  )  . Dissociative Disorders like D.I.D, O.S.D.D, and U.D.D would fall within multiplicity as something needing diagnosis but there are phenomena within the concept of "multiplicity" that are not inherently disordered  . Anyways if the sources don't meet MEDRS I have no issue moving this article. Would like to hear others input Kuia34 (talk) 01:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that a straight move/rename is probably best for the health of this article. At the moment, the discussion about non-disordered multiplicity are being lead by multiples, and there's only a little in the way of medical research into that (though there is some - see what Zarah Eve is doing for example). And I think people on this talk page are really getting hung up about multiplicity's overall status as a medical condition - it's not! That's the whole point of this being separate from the DID article. But I think holding this whole article to the standard of a medical article gets in the way of demonstrating that. Individual claims that do need WP:MEDRS can still get 'em.
 * That said, I don't know if (subculture) is the correct disambiguation. There is not one coherent multiplicity subculture or movement and I don't think the article is really supposed to be about the culture of multiples, it's about the phenomenon. It's not (yet) a widely scientifically validated phenomenon outside of the disorders attributed to it, but it is a thing rather than a people that we're trying to talk about here. The TikTok kids, tulpamancers, #pluralgang, the research front of 'voice hearing in young people' that Eve and others are doing, those are all little streams in a big river. Does that make sense? I don't actually know what I'd suggest otherwise, to be honest! But I feel reasonably strongly that (subculture) misses the mark.
 * - Housetiger 🏡🐯  (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸  talk  🔸  contrib  🔸 20:11, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that this article is supposed to be about the *thing* rather than a group of *people* and their culture that is actually one of the reasons I suggested the split. Anyways I think plasuible alternative titles could be Multiplicity(Mental Phenomena) or just Multiplicity(Phenomena) would be good as article titles.
 * I would also like to add that I don't necessarily agree with the statement that Multiplicity doesn't have a distinct coherent movement/culture. While the Multiplicity culture does appear to encompass various other cultures within itself at the core there are still main ideologies and beliefs that these group of people share and is why they interact with one another. They make like a sort of venn diagram and at the center is sort of Multiplicity as a culture I hope that made sense.Kuia34 (talk) 22:58, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried to rewrite it to make it more about the "thing" (the word and the identity) Kate the mochii (talk) 04:25, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your re-writes were great!! Made the article much better, Thanks! --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Revert
Hello @Kuia34 I reverted your edit because it had sentences like this :

"Dipsychism was later evolved into polypsychism the idea that the human mind was a cluster of subpersonalities which was coined by magnetizer Durand de gros"

which are unrelated to topic. The sources about the word "multiplicity" are all about communities of people with multiple personalities, not the cause of it. Theories on the human mind developed by magnetizers fall well outside the scope here.

Kate the mochii (talk) 23:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)


 * This page is about Multiplicity in general which includes the psychological concept and the moden day community. (unless the article is split) things related to the modern community go into the one specific section of the article and I didn't inlude any theories of the human mind made by any magnetizers the only theory I've added so far was divided consciousness which was created by a psychologist ....... The only place anything relating to magnetizers is in this article is when I disscuss the **history**  of the terms. I don't know if you know this but multiplicity is the same thing AS polypsychism.... everything I added is relevant to this article.  Kuia34 (talk) 23:41, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the words multiplicity, polypsychism, divided consciousness all mean the same thing in a dictionary. But it is impossible to reconcile the sources talking about a TikTok community and those talking about the theory of mind. Even the two psychology studies on "multiplicity" treats the multiplicity community as a black box and only set out to interview them. So do the lifestyle articles like the Vice source. Kate the mochii (talk) 23:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The second source in this article "The plural self: Multiplicity in everyday life." is about the psychological concept and never once mentions the community of people... I was planning on adding more sources about the concept and not the community of people later on when i got time.... Kuia34 (talk) 23:52, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This is one of the reasons I wanted to split the article actually to make a distinction between the concept and the group of people online who just adopted the terminolgy. Kuia34 (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with the split and it seems that the people above do too. But it tells me I am unable to create a new page. You can do it maybe. Could you create a new page called multiplicity (subculture) and fill it in with this text? And restore your changes here.
 * Also, I saw that Multiple personalities redirects to DID, so maybe you would want to redirect it to Multiplicity (psychology) too. Kate the mochii (talk) 00:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay I'll start splitting the article I'll come back here when I'm done Kuia34 (talk) 00:06, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay I did a lot of the work all that's left now is to flesh out the article and remove any sources remaining that are related to the community of people . As for the Multiple personality page I decided to make it a disambiguation page since DID is still called multiple personality disorder in alot of pace around the world so some people may still need to get to the DID article via that page. Multiple personality  Kuia34 (talk) 00:37, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The article was split
Since we really forgot to do it, I am letting you know that the article was split to Multiplicity (subculture) (resulting from the discussion). Kate the mochii (talk) 18:48, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

On improving the article and potential sources
I really want to improve this article, but I'm very new to editing wikipedia and not the best at writing and phrasing so I'll try to do small changes for now. If the article is improved (and not deleted) I could translate it to my native language. Here are some things that I'm planning to add to the article if it's not deleted or merged into the subculture article (when I figure out how to implement them properly):

– A "Experience versus disorder" section (or any other better title), while DID/OSDD are clinical diagnoses and multilples can be diagnosed with them, some do not fit the criteria (source 1 and 6 of the article). There are sources that argue and/or provide evidence of multiplicity being non-pathological and even beneficial in some cases (e.g. many tulpamancers claim that creating tulpas improved their mental health and overall lives, potential source 1, 2, and 3). The "Boundary with normality" section on ICD-11's DID page states this: "The presence of two or more distinct personality states does not always indicate the presence of a mental disorder. In certain circumstances (e.g., as experienced by ‘mediums’ or other culturally accepted spiritual practitioners) the presence of multiple personality states is not experienced as aversive and is not associated with impairment in functioning. A diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder should not be assigned in these cases." and I think it could be added to this section.

– A "Causes" section stating that while DID and OSDD are traumagenic disorders, some report that their multiplicity is not caused by trauma (source 1, 2 and 7 of the article), but there's a lack of research on non-traumagenic multiplicity.

– More information on multiplicity (and similar) experiences, like more information on the phenomenon of tulpamancy, DID and OSDD, and maybe other experiences that could count as multiplicity like fiction writer's characters acting on their own and being experienced as real as other people (source 4)

Potential Sources:


 * 1) https://www.academia.edu/9274338/Critiquing_the_Requirement_of_Oneness_over_Multiplicity_An_Examination_of_Dissociative_Identity_Disorder_in_Five_Clinical_Texts
 * 2) https://www.academia.edu/37853723/NORMAL_DIMENSIONS_OF_MULTIPLE_PERSONALITY_WITHOUT_AMNESIA
 * 3) https://www.academia.edu/13063918/Varieties_of_Tulpa_Experiences_The_Hypnotic_Nature_of_Human_Sociality_Personhood_and_Interphenomenality
 * 4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068700/
 * 5) Transgender Mental Health Book by Eric Yarbrough (has a whole chapter about plurality, pgs 157-165)

Tinychaotic (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind that WP:POVFORK is not allowed. Is there sufficient data to allow for an article that discusses multiplicity as a psychological phenomenon separate from DID, or is it a perspective on DID that should go in the main DID article? Should the psychological aspects of multiplicity instead be considered alongside the cultural aspects instead to minimise the risk of a POVFORK? lizthegrey (talk) 16:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I get what you mean, I believe that multiplicity as a psychological phenomenon separate from DID is notable enough to have it's own article. I will try to stay away from the subculture aspects at least until it's decided what will happen with both this article and the subculture one. Tinychaotic (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2023 (UTC)