Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption in identity involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning.

Many alters can be “stuck in the past” and still think it is 1968 or 1987 or some other year when they were still physically a child and the abusers were in charge of them.

The differences in alter personality states' self-concepts can be striking, but authorities routinely stress that these are more apparent than real (e.g., Putnam, 1989a; Kluft, 1991). Various typologies have been offered, but few systematic data exist. Types of MPD alters, such as child-like personality states, angry alters, protectors, and persecutors, are found often enough to warrant further investigation.

The reported numbers of MPD alter personality states are given great play by critics. As usual, these critics rarely consult the research. Although cases with dozens or scores of alters have been reported, the mode is 3 and the median typically 8-10 (see, e.g., Putnam et al., 1986; Coons et al., 1988; Ross, Norton, and Wozney, 1989f; Kluft, 1991).

Some of the parts inside me were ready to come up and tell what had happened, but others didn't want me to know they even existed, I learned that when parts were in conflict with each other or didn't like what I was doing, I felt pain and panic, Dr. Summer encouraged me to pay attention to the parts and address the issues they raised, but to also challenge them and keep doing as many of my normal activities as I could.

I still didn't know very much about the complex coping mechanism that had helped me survive my childhood. It was as if my conscious mind wasn't strong enough yet to fully grasp that I had parts. I knew it superficially, but I didn't feel it all the way through.

What is it, sweetie," I asked."Hair, said a voice that wasn't Missy's. It was Little Joe, a two-year-old personality, and his fingers played in my waist-length hair just as my own babies had many years ago.My skin prickled as I realized how complete my experience was of being touched by a toddler.

Robin and Reagan are unique in that they date their creation not to a single traumatic event but to the need of the group to maintain a nonconficted, nonabreactive memory trace. The other past-keepers are both reactive and information-providing personalities-they appear in my office to give me information the system seems to think I need, or in response to my touching a critical nerve in the Jo, Missy, Joan Frances, or Renee personalities.

Scientists, doctors, and trained ordinary citizens use drugs and torture to render children machines that do others' bidding. The commands these perpetrators put in the victims are called "programming".They take an isolated, barricaded piece from one stream in the mind and another and another and sometimes tie them together at the bottom and twist them together and tell them to act but not remember.

No one inside will ever disappear. We're all real. We all matter.