In this chapter I consider the anomaly of multiple personality – the existence of certain rare individuals who present themselves in the form of several credible persons that separately fulfil the criteria for personhood. I then go on to view this phenomenon as an extreme instance of the sort of fragmentation of personal identity and self-identity that is quite commonplace and perfectly acceptable. I also attempt to conceptualise fragmentation in relation to the dimension of involvement introduced in the last chapter. I illustrate this kind of conceptual analysis by applying it to some textual examples.

Rom Harré is well aware that his understanding of the preconditions for personhood is potentially challenged by the existence of persons who, as a singular body, express several public identities. In his words, ‘multiplicity of the embodied person marks a sharp break with the human form of life’ (Harré 1998: 152). Normally, we occupy only one standpoint from which to perceive and act, made manifest in the use of a first-person grammar. Harré argues that use of the first person, indexing the spatio-temporal location of the embodied person, is a transcultural and robust feature of all discourses. He regards the existence of multiple persons in one body as an example of the pathological use of grammar, at least for English speakers, although it might not be pathological in an absolute sense because grammars are said to be culturally diverse (Harré 1998: 189).