The term "endogenic" is fairly new, and it's a community-based term. Like the difference between "multiple personality disorder" and/or "multiple" or "the dissociated system" and various ways the professionals refer to clients or study subjects, versus "plural" which is a community-driven term, we cannot look for studies on "endogenic systems" in the psychology literature.
So what is it that psychology calls "endogenic" experiences, and why is it so difficult to make the connection back to the research & literature?
Frankly, many folk with endogenic experiences never end up in a research study, or in a therapists' office, and rarely hang out in DID support groups, etc. They may, however, end up in say a Hearing Voices support group, or other spaces where their experiences of plurality are accepted without confrontation.
In more open-ended/boundary-less spaces such as Twitter, there's more confrontation between DID systems and endogenic systems, a lot of fake-claiming of endogenic systems, and shitposting about "not proven" by research etc. And these claims against endogenic systems are untrue. This is setting aside that, since presence of trauma before plurality is not a diagnostic point of difference, endogenic systems can also be DID-diagnosed and need therapy. Belief or subjective perceptions of how your headmates came about is not a diagnostic criteria at all.
The book The Plural Self came out in 1999, we (Crisses) got a copy of it shortly after. When folk started using the term "plural" around us more (circa 2017) it was packed in a container in storage and we had forgotten we owned it. When we finally got housing in 2020, we found it again and took a better look at it (yes, we collect research materials we don't have the time to read cover-to-cover, and we still haven't read it cover-to-cover). That's where we found some of the hints for other terminology to look for various plural experiences under such as "subpersonalities" and "polypsychism". We had already heard of "self-pluralism" which is likely how we found the book in the first place.
Reference Materials
If someone says "there is no research" they're incorrect. This is a page to help with emotional labor of endogenic folk who keep hearing this excuse to fake claim them.
You will need to find these articles or books via a research library, online research account, research librarian (who can email you a copy), interlibrary loan, potentially Google Scholar or Google Books, or other resources. You might find them with a web search with "pdf" -- but due to copyright constraints we cannot supply these articles — but we can point you to the titles and relevant search terms when these apply.
SUMMARY
Plurality is a more patient-centered approach to what has historically been referred to as dissociative identities. This is not the same as the DSM-5 diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Plurality makes up just one part of the larger diagnosis and does not necessarily cause distress. Although many people who are plural have a history of trauma, there are just as many who do not. A plural system is a collection of all the alters present. With some people these alters might come and go, whereas with others they are static and waiting to be discovered.
When working with plurality, it is necessary for clinicians to be open and transparent with patients about their decision making regarding gender-affirming treatments. Plural people need treatment and assessments just as any patient would. They also may need access to gender-affirming treatments. Approach plural people with a sense of humility and curiosity. Discuss with them what gender means for each of the alters present and whether there will be a shared decision making when pursuing treatment options available.
Clinicians should communicate closely with each other if they are part of a team treating a plural person. All mental health professionals involved should be aware of plurality when it is present so that an appropriate evaluation can take place. These evaluations may need to happen over time so the clinicians can look for the three major hallmarks of someone who can provide consent for treatment: insistency, consistency, and persistency.
Key Points
- Plurality refers to what many mental health professionals know as dissociative identities.
- Plurality is not the same as dissociative identity disorder but makes up one part of it.
- Many plural people are quite happy with the alters present inside them.
- Plurality is not necessarily caused by trauma, although trauma can be part of the overall picture.
- Plurality becomes complicated when clinicians are working with gender dysphoria.
- It is important for mental health professionals to be open and transparent with plural people about their
This assumption is supported by research showing that polypsychism or multiplicity represents maladaptivity and compromised identity (Altrocchi, 1998). Altrocchi and McReynolds (1997) report the development of a self-report scale that aims to measure multiplicity, named the Brief Self-Pluralism Scale (BSPS). It includes items such as ‘People who know me say that my behaviour changes from situation to situation’ and ‘There are times when I felt like a completely different person from what I was the day before’. Research findings show that individuals who experience greater multiplicity within their personal identity share common features of psychopathology (Altrocchi et al., 1990) whereby polypsychism is associated with self-concept instability, lower self-esteem, less clarity and coherence, negative complexity, greater differentiation, neuroticism and maladjustment.
It is arguable that Dissociative Identity Disorder is the most extreme variant of polypsychism, at the pathological end of the spectrum or dimension of pluralism in self-structure. Differences along this dimension of multiplicity can be considered to range from variability, diversity, heterogeneity and instability (polypsychism) to invariability, homogeneity, unity and stability (monopsychism) in self-experience. It is appropriate to conclude that greater polypsychism or multiplicity signifies greater psychopathology generally, the severe end of this continuum denoted by DID.
— from The personality structure questionnaire (PSQ): a measure of the multiple self states model of identity disturbance in cognitive analytic therapy by Pollak et al in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy (2001).
Look for terms like polypsychism, subpersonalities, ego states (which is extremely broad!), self-pluralism, etc.
- Article from the Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis: Modes of Existence: Towards a Phenomenological Polypsychism by Mick Cooper
- article: International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis: Selected Topics in Ego State Therapy by Claire Frederick, Chapter I Polypsychism and Ego State Therapy (you will need a research library or librarian to access)
- Critical Psychology: The International Journal of Critical Psychology: A plurality of selves? An illustration of polypsychism in a recovered addict. Peter Raggatt (2002)
- Hidden Minds: A History of the Unconscious by Frank Tallis, 2002) - search inside "polypsychism" etc.
- The Plural Self: Multiplicity in Everyday Life edited by Mick Cooper 1998 - We Crisses own a copy of this book. Richard Schwartz (IFS theory) and Colin Ross (DID expert) have essays/chapters in the book. Ross' article is "Subpersonalities and multiple personalities: A dissociative continuum?"
- Dissociation: Culture, Mind, and Body edited by David Spiegel (1994) search on polypsychism, also goes into a brief overview of Carl Jung's involvement on the topic.
- Richard Schwartz, father of Internal Family Systems Theory with books (and articles, such as mentioned above) on the topic of "everyone having parts" has lightly expanded his theories to include DID in the book No Bad Parts but does not go extensively into how his treatment methods & theory cover DID. It mentions DID several times, but is not really covering full DID treatment or describing how his model works with DID thoroughly. (We have not read it, this was from a discussing the book with another plural who did read it.)
This is from a few searches, there are many more resources. The easiest ones to find would be the ones in the references lists for these articles & books.
Please feel free to comment with or use the contact form to submit more resources to add to this page if you come across more documentation, research, studies, discussions etc. whether in current psychology/psychiatry (preferred) or reasonably credible philosophy or historical references.
Studies including Disordered & Non-Disordered Plurality or Multiplicity
- This article outlines the cohort and study being done on experiences of multiplicity by Youth and Policy, including non-disordered and non-traumagenic being included in their study.
Jung — the stealth plural?
There's actually a lot of "obvious plurality" in Jung's teachings. Anima/animus, shadow self, archetypes, etc. But how "plural" was Jung?
Note, he never used the word "plural" (which makes a lot of sense as he was Swiss anyway). As always, Jung was dealing with a pluralphobic world, in which folk (almost always women) with demonstrable plurality were deemed hysterical, and folk with DID had the hysterical dissociative subtype. For Jung, being a student of psychology and male helped him discuss his observations, experiences and conversations as intellectual pursuits and not be lumped into the patient cohort and deemed mad for it. It would make sense if he carefully dressed up his experiences with a protective veil to ensure he was not thought "too" out there.
Unfortunately we're limited by people's translations of Jung's original words. When a translation is "heavily edited" one wonders what choices the translators made — what did they exclude? When a word has connotations or multiple meanings in the original language, which English gloss did they choose — did they represent the intent of the original work, or did they massage it with their own biases and interpretations? A translation is always biased this way. As I don't read the original language nor have access to the original text — I could not say what was really said, and whether anyone massaged Jung's prolific work with a heavy hand and plural bias.
Even so, there's a lot out there to find — this is a preliminary sample of some of the tip-offs that strongly suggest if not prove Carl Jung was having experiences of plurality for many years, if not life.
- https://philemonfoundation.org/about-philemon/who-is-philemon/ - potentially an introject or headmate, this was a wise insider of whom Jung said "He formulated and expressed everything which I had never thought."
- https://jungutah.com/blog/jung-and-the-inner-world-2/ - Jung made the assumption that, since he had a rich inner world — so must everyone. This is a very plural centric assumption, likely from someone who had a comfort with and familiarity with his own inner world for quite some time.
- He also spent 16 years exploring his inner world and created the Red Book from it. http://philemonfoundation.org/published-works/red-book/ - was this the inner world or did Jung stumble on something else? The drawings & paintings are amazing, but the full translation with imagery is exceptionally expensive. Libraries may own a copy that can be viewed or borrowed.
- Another article on Jung and the inner world experience & importance
- Jung’s attribution of synchronicity to AISOAVV principles
- a very brief article reenforcing some of Jung's ideas of self-exploration
Jung is certainly not a perfect plural role-model, in addition to the above he had what may have been an early attempt at polyamory — his established partner resisted him having another lover for a time but then the implication was this settled into something more amiable later. Was he a womanizer or a plural with a second love-interest? We may never know. Even contemporary plurals struggle with issues around divergent attractions and how to balance non-monogamy in a primarily monogamous society.
Other controversies would be the predominant ideas of the time around believing victims which his mentor Freud had started out with before caving to pressure to disbelieve victims and change his entire philosophy around trauma to basically blame the victim. Jung was mentored within this patriarchal mindset and of course it colors all of his works going forward.
Outright Blatant Studies of Disordered vs. Non-Disordered Plurality
Normal Dimensions Of Multiple Personality Without Amnesia (Kunzendorf et al, 1998-1999, Imagination, Cognition & Personality) Full text available at link. Their hypothesis is that plurality is a normal human experience (of some people, not all) and exists before trauma, and that DID is traumatized plurality.
The possibility that multiple personalities are normal, so long as they can be self-consciously remembered, has previously been suggested by Harter and Hartmann. In Harter's view, not unusual for the normal adolescent to experience himself or herself as different people in different situations [7]. And in Hartmann's schema of thinand thick-boundaried personalities, it is not unusual for the normal adult with thin boundaries to "see one's identity as flexible, changing over time or according to the situation" [8, p. 43]. Moreover, the old DSM-III-R syndrome of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) had diagnostic criteria corresponding to multiple self-identity and multiple self-control, but none corresponding to dissociative amnesia [9], and studies found 30 percent to 50 percent of people with MPD to be "high-functioning" [10, p. 291]. Our thesis predicts that many more, totally normal people with multiple personalities, but no amnesia, never come to the attention of the clinical psychological establishment.
This study specifically created an instrument to test whether someone experienced identity changes and/or amnesias across different areas of their life and whether it would pass the bar of disordered or not. Their discussion section mentions "In post experiment conversations with persons who report Multiple Self Identity and Multiple Self-Control, but no Recall Amnesia/Source Amnesia, all such persons insisted that they truly become different selves in different situations. When specifically queried, they also insisted that this reported shifting of their personality was not a result of semantic interpretation and was not the same as the shifting of their emotion." and other lovely tidbits worth reading.
Studies on Parogenics/Tulpamancy
- Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences. Jacob J. Isler. - 2017 study published in Research in Psychology & Behavioral Sciences
More Articles - as yet unread/uncategorized.
- Normal Dimensions of Multiple Personality Without Amnesia by Robert G. Kunzendorf et al.
- Cognitive processes in dissociation: An analysis of core theoretical assumptions by Steven Lynn et al
- Dissociative Amnesia in Dissociative Disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder: Self-Rating Assessment in a College Population by Vedat Şar et al
Additional Community References
We're not the only folk in the community attempting to pull together references/research on Endogenic folks. Here's others.