Fragmented selves in late modernity: making sociological sense of multiplepersonalities

Sociological responses to the increase in recent years of psychiatric repor ts of multiple personality (latterly redefined as Dissociative Identity Dis order) have focused upon its discursive production as a diagnostic category , Drawing on life-history interviews with survivors of extreme childhood ab use - some of whom defined themselves as having 'multiple personalities' - this paper suggests that an adequate sociological account needs to combine analysis of the popular and clinical discourses of dissociation/multiplicit y, with an understanding of the relationship between these and particular i ndividual auto/biographies. The production of a narrative of fragmented sub jectivity is considered as an active engagement with previously denied and silenced autobiographical experience and with the dominant contemporary dis course that allows for the episodic denial of self-reflexive selfhood, In t he light of DID diagnoses being largely applied to/adopted by women, questi ons are raised concerning the possible impact of the adoption of a multiple identity on individual integrity and autonomy.