Alter Quote by Alison Miller
““The "apparently normal personality" - the alter you view as "the client" You should not assume that the adult who function in the world, or who presents to you, week after week, is the "real" person, and the other personalities are less real. The client who comes to therapy is not "the" person; there are other personalities to meet and work with. When DID was still officially called MPD, the "person" who lived life on the outside was known as the "host" personality, and the other parts were known as alters. These terms, unfortunately, implied that all the parts other than the host were guests, and therefore of less importance than the host. They were somehow secondary. The currently favored theory of structural dissociation (Nijenhuis & Den Boer, 2009; van der Hart, Nijenhuis, & Steele, 2006), which more accurately describes the way personality systems operate, instead distinguishes between two kinds of states: the apparently normal personality, or ANP, and the emotional personality, or EP, both of which could include a number of parts. p21””
About This Quote
Source Book: Structural Dissociation of the Personality, Nijenhuis & Den Boer, 2009
The quote explains that in Dissociative Identity Disorder, the “apparently normal personality” is not the sole or true self; multiple parts coexist and are equally real.
In simple terms: Multiple personalities coexist, none is more real than another.
Key Takeaway
Treat all parts as valid selves.
Themes
psychology
identity
therapy
trauma
dissociation
Mood
empathetic
analytical
Type
clinical
educational
When to use this quote
- clinical assessment
- treatment planning
- patient education
- support groups
Key Concepts
structural dissociation
ANP
EP
multiple selves
Questions to Reflect On
- How can clinicians balance attention between ANP and EP?
- What strategies help patients integrate multiple parts?
A Different Perspective
The concept may be misunderstood as suggesting equal importance of all parts, which can be clinically complex.
![“A child who is being abused on an ongoing basis needs to be able to function despite the trauma that dominates his or her daily life. That becomes the job of at least one ANP [apparently normal part of the personality], whom the child creates to be unaware of the abuse and also of the…” quote by Alison Miller](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f94/alison-miller-20257_amnesia_a-child-who-is-being-abused-on-an-ongoin_1146863.jpg)
