is plurality genetic?
	is all multiplicity caused by physical or sexual abuse in childhood?
	it sounds like you've just got a lot of imaginary friends.
	if multiplicity is not caused by child abuse, why do all multiples in the literature have backgrounds of child abuse?

myths/statements

	but i thought all multiplicity had to be caused by ritual abuse.

is plurality genetic?	top

No one's really sure about this. There simply isn't enough research yet.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that plurality may run in families. Psychoneurological research on multiples has been set back by the recent recovered-memory scandals in therapy for multiples. Plurality has become such a hot topic that few professionals want to touch it. It may be fifty years before anyone dares to give plurality the serious scientific consideration it deserves.

is all multiplicity caused by physical or sexual abuse in childhood?	top

No -- at least not universally. From the anecdotal evidence we have collected from multiples online and off, being plural appears to be a psychoneurological trait like being left- handed. Plural children who are abused may rely on friends and companions in their already-existing group to help them get through it. Others may actually split or created new people as a response to trauma, as in the classic cases. Don't assume that all plurals have identical or nearly identical origin stories. Ask.

it sounds like you've just got a lot of imaginary friends.	top

Does it matter?

if multiplicity is not caused by child abuse, why do all multiples in the literature have backgrounds of child abuse?	top

Because they're the ones who have come to the attention of mental health professionals. It's called biased sampling.

Many minds in one body is neither a disaster nor a disorder -- but for a century or so, it's been taken for an illness, a sign of head injury, or a sure indication that Something Bad Must Have Happened. Unfortunately, many non-multiples as well as multiples who come in for therapy have received an MPD/DID diagnosis along with the assumption, "Oh, that's what's wrong with you!", followed by years of stressful therapy that many times does not address the real issues (see http://www .karitas.net/blackbirds/layman/add_fms.html).

Some systems believe that brain development and cultural conditioning in early childhood are more important factors than whether or not one is abused; that is, children who are trained to believe that they must be a single, consistent person may lose the inclination to be plural.

MYTH: but i thought all multiplicity had to be caused by ritual abuse.	top

Oh yes, blame it on Satan. In the 80s and 90s, America witnessed another spin of the Satan cycle, in which psychological problems are blamed on having been forced into participation in Blacke Drippye Magick. Sparked by a trashy "nonfiction" book called Michelle Remembers, and fueled by the fall of the Soviet Union, the culture wars, and fundamentalist reactions to feminism and the abortion debate, it was Salem all over again.

SRA propaganda was originally spread by certain elements of the Christian Right, including Hal Lindsey and Johanna Michaelsen, and it got a huge amount of press from Geraldo Rivera. Some prominent mental health professionals, including Colin Ross (founder of the Ross Institute) and Bennett Braun (founder of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, today's ISSD) used the SRA myth to their own advantage, creating DDU's (Dissociative Disorders Units in hospitals) which were nothing more than hotbeds of hysteria. Patients were told they "simply didn't remember" what had happened to them, and encouraged to accept the wild stories concocted out of whole cloth by their therapists. Some of these women are now suing (for instance, Pat Burgus). Actual survivors of Satanic ritual abuse, if any, are not helped by such theatrics.

Whether stories of SRA are true or not, multiples themselves state a variety of origin stories, including physical, emotional and sexual abuse/neglect, witness to tragedy, and spiritual abuse -- oftentimes in a Christian setting. Some multiples claim to have been abused in that they were overdisciplined or even pushed into exorcisms because they were born multiple; others, that abuse simply was not a factor.

It's a difficult subject, and one in which you really cannot assume anything. Ask.