DUAL PERSONALITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 30

DUAL PERSONALITY

DEFENCE FOR WOMAN'S CRIMES A suggestion that a woman was suffering from a dual personality as the result of which she committed wrong acts which-were not remembered when she recovered her normal state, was made at Westminster Police Court recently. Kathleen O’Brien, otherwise Norah Harrison, aged 35, was charged with obtaining £24 by false pretences from the Professional Classes Aid Council, of Brompton Road, Kensington, S.W., and it was alleged that when appealing for assistance she wrote references as to her character in fictitious names. Detective-Sergeant Widocks said that the woman told him that she could not remember what had occurred. She had been an inmate of a mental home and had a dual personality. Dr. R. M. Riggall, of Wimpole Street,

said he was a specialist in clinical psychology in 1927. O’Brien was one of his patients, her case being one of disassociation of personality; in other words, dual personality. Mr. Boyd (the magistrate): What does that mean?

Dr. Riggall: She was suffering from an extremely rare condition, in which there is a distinct second personality outside consciousness. The effect is that she would be quite irresponsible for certain actions. The actions of her second personality would not be known by her true personality. What O’Brien did in her wrong moods would he forgotten when she returned to her true personality. Mr. Boyd: Would such a person know what he or she was doing if a letter were written? Would the person know that they had written it?—No. You mean they would forget that

it was a good or bad tiling they had done? —Yes. It would only be remembered by reviving that personality by a process of hypnosis.

Mr. O’Connor: When the act was completed she would be in complete ignorance o£ having performed it?— Not exactly. So long ’as she was in that second personality the act would be remembered, but when she came back to her true personality it would be forgotten. Mr. Boyd: Is this not. indeed a rare form of mental disease?

Dr. Riggall: It is well known among psychologists. Mr. Boyd: Is it now put forward in mitigation or as insanity? Mr. Martin O’Connor (defending): Irresponsibility of action at times.

O’Brien was committed tor trial on bail. '