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Doris: The shadow self sounds quite a lot like multiple personality, where there is another identity that is unknown to the conscious self which emerges from time to time, and where there seem to be two distinct personalities in one body. That seems like the mother of all ambiguities.
I think there may well be a connection between the two, and that multiple personality is another extreme form of a self-concept that is based largely on negation. However, multiple personality is very different than paranoia, so how could the two result from the same process? There is one clear difference that might explain this. While a paranoid perceives the shadow self in the outside world, a multiple keeps it inside their body, and it is possible that this difference alone causes one rather than the other.
In most multiples, the main personality has completely internalized social values and is hardworking, churchgoing, polite, etc., while the other personality values the opposite, and is lazy, rebellious, coarse, etc. Over 90% of multiples are women, and women tend to internalize social values more readily than men do. Although a paranoid also internalizes social values, apparently they do it in a very different way. Although I havent been able to find very good statistics, most sources state that over two-thirds of paranoids are male. That is an additional suggestion that in some way paranoia and multiples are very similar, yet somehow also mirror-image opposites. Is a multiple simply a case of denying normal healthy impulses that dont fit with a rigid and perfectionistic social ideal, or does a multiple think of these forbidden impulses in the form of not self representations? It should be fairly easy to determine this.
I have never worked with a multiple, so you should receive anything I say about multiples with great caution and skepticism. To simplify our thinking on a very puzzling topic, lets restrict ourselves to dual personality. The first multiples to be described only had two personalities. In recent years both the number of multiples reported, and the number of personalities per multiple has exploded. Its unclear whether this is a process of discovery, or creation, or overenthusiastic diagnosis. I have some very strong doubts about those who report more than two, and even experts in the field say that most of the additional personalities are fragmentary, so most of them are probably more like what we would call parts of the person related to different outcomes, rather than full personalities.
One way of thinking about dual personality is that rather than having scattered individual ambiguous qualities, the way most of us do, one side of each ambiguity is assembled into one personality, while the other side of each ambiguity is assembled into another. Each personality functions as a one-sided integrated whole, but there is a vast gulf between the two.
Milton Erickson, who worked with a number of multiples, believed that each personality used the same set of experiences, while applying completely different values to those experiences:
... it seems to me that dual personalities actually represent well-organized, coordinated, and integrated use of the same total experience, but from two entirely different points of orientation...
My finding with dual personalities is that they react in both ways simultaneously. Usually one of the personalities is active and builds up an experiential background in that way. The other tends to be passive and to orient itself about things of only minor consideration to the other personality. As a consequence, you get two personalities constructed, each of which has its own set and scale of values, based upon totally different usage of the common experiences. (3, p. 143)
While the ordinary personality is usually present, nevertheless the secondary personality is very definitely in the background, observing, participating, and sharing, but in a fashion unknown to the ordinary personality. I will agree, however, that when the secondary personality is in the foreground, the primary personality is most completely out of the picture, and, so far as I can tell, actually misses completely the experiences of the active secondary personality. Just how this is possible, I cannot conceive, and yet it seems to be so. (4, p. 144)
If Ericksons understanding is correct about different personalities arising from differently valuing the same experiences, that would also fit very nicely with what I have presented. Assuming for the moment that the conscious personality defines itself by negations, then the conscious mind would value the negated representation, while the unconscious would value its opposite. That would result in the secondary personality being completely unconscious and unknown to the conscious personality. Then when the unconscious self becomes conscious, it would make sense that the previously conscious self would continue to be totally unaware of the other personality, and whatever it did while it was in charge.
Some day I hope to find time to locate and interview a dual personality. I think that I could use the approach presented here to learn more, and perhaps confirm some of these guesses. Id make a list of each personalitys constellation of qualities, to hopefully learn more about how they remain separate, and how to integrate the two, and I would determine to what extent each personality defines itself by what it is not. If my guesses are correct, the primary personality defines itself by negation, while the secondary personality doesnt. By working at the level of qualities, rather than at the level of the whole personality, I think that integration would be much easier and faster, just as the integration of ambiguities as I have presented it here is much easier than when using the Visual Squash.
There still remains the question of how two sets of qualities can each be organized into a separate personality in relation to opposing sets of values, and how this is different from other extreme polarities such as bulimia. Most people include both sides of an ambiguity or conflict in one identity, even when one of them is severely dissociated and alienated.
Since multiple personality is such a rare disorder, we also need to consider the possibility that some kind of neurological damage prevents the usual integration of identity. There are a number of neurological injuries that severely disturb the sense of self, so perhaps there is a unique and rare kind of injury that results in multiple personality.
When I have seen films and videos of people who were described as multiples, most of them have not been very convincing to me. I usually didnt see the kind of complete nonverbal reorganization that people report. I saw only the incongruence and partial dissociation that is familiar to anyone doing NLP work with different parts of a person with conflicting outcomes.
However, many years ago I personally experienced a multiple who was very, very, convincing to me, so I am sure they do exist. I was with a casual acquaintance who was under considerable stress at the time. I looked away from her briefly, and when I looked back, there were strikingly different intently piercing eyes, commanding voice and posture. I am not easily scared, but this was a scene that could have come straight out of the movie, The Exorcist. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and the best way I can describe it is that someone else was there! I later found out that this other personality was a Mediterranean fertility goddess who took over control of her daily, and was typing the manuscript of a book!
Most multiples have been discovered during hypnotherapy, so we also have to consider the possibility that inappropriate hypnotherapy may play a part in creating a multiple. Erickson reported a couple of multiples who had not experienced hypnosis, at least not officially, but some hypnotic life experiences could have had a similar effect. For instance, some parents say to a child who has just misbehaved, Wheres my sweet little girl? Where did she go? Who is this bad girl? If this sort of hypnotic language is used often, or during the kind of stressful events that often create traumatic imprints, I think it could at least contribute to creating a multiple.
Keep in mind that a lot of this is speculation, and that I havent tested it by working with a multiple. It might well be that this is one of those theories that Thomas Henry Huxley spoke of: The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact. At minimum, these are some possibilities that could be checked out by people who work with multiples.
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