The dissociation of a personality : a biographical study in abnormal psychology / by Morton Prince.

  • Prince, Morton, 1854-1929.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The dissociation of a personality : a biographical study in abnormal psychology / by Morton Prince. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    CHAPTER II MISS BEAUCHAMP Miss Beauchamp — I mean the one who first pre- sented herself for professional care in the spring of 1898 (B I) — is extremely reticent and dislikes intensely any discussion of herself or her circumstances. She is even reticent in reference to her physical ailments, so much so that it is never easy to discover any temporary indisposition from which she may be suffering. She dis- likes the publicity which her psychical trouble tends to draw upon her, and has sought jealously to guard her secret. Indeed, all three personalities have endeavored by every artifice to conceal the knowledge of their trouble from friends, and have done so with a success that is aston- ishing. It has been at the expense of being considered a strange, incomprehensible person, “unlike other people,” as may well be the case when three persons have to act one role in life’s comedy. The publication of this study has been consented to by Miss Beauchamp, as a personal favor, at the sacrifice of all her instinctive tastes and inclinations. The constant answer to my frequent remonstrance about her reticence is, “ I have never been in the habit of talk- ing about my private affairs.” All this is carried to the verge of morbidness, or to what more exactly might be termed “fixed ideas.” I mention this merely as evidence of the absence of any desire for notoriety, or exaggeration. Nevertheless, I am acquainted with all the important de- tails of her past and present life. Besides the reticence in matters pertaining to herself, already mentioned, she is possessed of a conscientiousness