Christine "Sally" Beauchamp was the pseudonym of a woman, actually named Clara Norton Fowler, studied by American

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

Morton Prince Morton Henry Prince (December 22, 1854 – August 31, 1929) was an American physician who specialized in neurology and abnormal psychology, and was a leading force in establishing psychology as a clinical and academic discipline. He was part o ...

between 1898 and 1904. She was one of the first persons diagnosed as having multiple personalities (a disorder now termed

dissociative identity disorder Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The di ...

). Prince reported her case in his 1906 book-length description of her disorder.

History

Beauchamp was a 23-year-old student who came to Prince, a Boston neurologist, because she was suffering from a "nervous disorder". Her alternate personalities first appeared under

hypnotherapy Hypnotherapy is a type of mind–body intervention in which hypnosis is used to create a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern. Popularized by 17th and 18th cen ...

but later appeared spontaneously. Prince was active in naming the personalities and in expressing a preference for one of them. Prince "cured" her by reconciling her other personalities with the original one. Beauchamp later married one of Prince's assistants. Prince described Beauchamp as having three main distinct personalities, each of which had differing degrees of knowledge of the others. He wrote: "although making use of the same body, each ... has a distinctly different character ... manifested by different trains of thought, ... views, beliefs, ideals, and temperament, and by different acquisitions, tastes, habits, experiences, and memories..."

Importance

This case was widely cited as the "prototypical case" of

, even into the 1970s.

References

External links

The dissociation of a personality; a biographical study in abnormal psychology (1906)
on the Internet Archive. {{DEFAULTSORT:Beauchamp, Christine Year of birth missing Place of birth missing Year of death missing Place of death missing People with dissociative identity disorder