A multiple system is a form of plurality in which the members of the plural system are fairly distinct and not particularly strongly connected to each other, as opposed to the smaller amount of distinction that is found in a median or midcontinuum system. It was likely popularized or coined in 1994 by the Sapphire Gazelles[1] as a term derived from the diagnosis multiple personality disorder (the prior diagnostic term for dissociative identity disorder). Gazelles acknowledged that in nearly every case, individuals who used the term experienced severe trauma at an age prior to age 5, but that there were cases where there was no trauma involved, or when the person became multiple at a later age, or both.
Since the term's inception, it has both spread into medical research and papers[2], sometimes disparagingly[3], and in the wider plurality community, being used by endogenic systems and other non-traumagenic systems as well as traumagenic systems and those with dissociative disorders. It is also used as a synonym for plurality overall by many.
- ↑ alt.support.dissociation FAQ by Sapphire Gazelles et al
- ↑ Multiplicity: An Explorative Interview Study on Personal Experiences of People with Multiple Selves, multiple authors, 2017
- ↑ "Multiple Systems" versus Dissociative Identity Disorder: Life-Style or Mental Illness? by Megan Sullivan