DUAL PERSONALITY AND CRIME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18441, 27 March 1922, Page 5

DUAL PERSONALITY AND CRIME

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is probably the most convincing exposition in modern times of what is known as dual personality. How many people, however, consider this romance seriously? How many of us ever contemplate whether we may not perhaps be two people in.one? For all we really know, dual life may be the general form of individual existence. The divorce, the police, the criminal courts constantly reveal surprising examples of the kind of people who do sin against the law, and who were never expected to do so.

Is there any one in the world who knows absolutely all there is to be known about another being? Do wo even suspect all the truth about ourDr. Goddard, an expert student of juvenile crime, has just made an experiment which supports the . theory that even if we represent two individual indentities in one body we may not be aware of it. The doctor’s attention was lately drawn to a particularly difficult case' of dual personality. Ihe sufferer when living either of her two personalities was quit© unaware of the existence of the other. To the world at large she was a charming, educated girl of nineteen. In her other state she was a wilful, uncontrollable child of four. The girl is one of twins, the sister dying young. Since it is not relevant to betray her name, w e call the girl A and the same child B. HYPNOTIC TREATMENT. , As A grew older. B threatened to dominate and seriously disturbed A’s studies and health. Ais quite unable, however to throw any light on the matter, because she never knew when she was Bor vice versa. All that hap.

pened was that as A she grew tired and sleepy, or developed a headache, a.nd immediately became B without any warning. There was rever any dividing moment. She was either one personality or the other. As B she was ignorant, refused to read or write, talked like a baby, made grimaces, resisted discipline, and answered to another name. Dr. Goddard is curing A with a hypnotic suggestion treatment, but th* task has not been an easy one. First of all he placed A under hypnotism and spoke to her. She answered him in her nineteen-year-old voice, but when later he tried to converse with B there wa-s no response. Eventually he succeeded in drawing B from the inmost recesses of the girl’s mind, and B replied as B. Dr. Goddard held the opinion that to achieve a cure A must be made acquainted with B and taught how to become the predominant partner. By patient suggestion he is gradually driving B far away into A’s personality, and her life is now promising to become normal. This experience of Dr. Goddard's may throw some light on the series of mysterious crimes now besetting the world. E.H.W.