Multiple personality and personal identity

If personal identity consists in non-branching psychological continuity, th en the sharp breaks in psychological connectedness characteristic of Multip le Personality Disorder implicitly commit psychological continuity theories to a metaphysically extravagant reification of alters. Animalist theories of personal identity avoid the reification of alternate personalities by in terpreting multiple personality as a failure to integrate alternative autob iographical memory schemata. In the normal case, autobiographical memory cr oss-classifies a human life, and in so doing provides access to a variety o f interpretative frameworks with their associated clusters of general event memory and episodic memory. Multiples exhibit erratic behavior because the y cannot access reliably the intersecting autobiographical memory schemata that permit graceful transitions between social roles, behavioral repertoir e and emotional dispositions. Selves, in both normal and certain pathologic al cases, are best understood as semi-fictional narratives created by human animals to serve their social, emotional and physical needs.