Title: The Harm of Stigmatizing Tulpas, Plurality, and Hearing Voices
Caption: “Hearing Voices Isn’t a Problem”
Hi everyone. My name’s Jacob, although I usually go by Ford online. I’m a tulpamancer who has published research on healthy plurality, which is the state of multiple identities coexisting in one mind without there being any related issues. I’m also a student at the University of Texas at Austin. Just last week, I saw my Cognitive Psychology professor to get guidance on a new study on plurality that I’m planning.
This was my first time meeting with her one on one, so I had to start from ground zero. Tulpamancy is the type of plurality that I have the most knowledge and experience with, so I introduced it first. When I first explained the concept of tulpas, which are willingly created, fully conscious beings that share your brain and body, she was dead set on the idea that everyone who experienced them had a case of psychosis or Dissociative Identity Disorder. Luckily, after sharing the research surrounding the subject and some of my own personal experiences, I was not only able to change her mind, but also earn her support for future studies on tulpas and healthy plurality I have planned. At the end of our discussion, I asked her if she had heard of tulpamancy or healthy plurality before our discussion. She confessed that, before I spoke to her, she didn’t even think healthy plurality was possible. Keep in mind that this isn’t just a random psychiatrist-- she’s a professor who has written a textbook on cognitive science and conducts top-level research at one of the highest ranked institutions in psychology. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that every month, I hear new story about a psychiatrist trying to diagnose someone with schizophrenia just because they have tulpas. Despite having literally no other symptom of schizophrenia-- you know, uncontrollable hallucinations, impaired logic, disconnect from reality-- apparently, having an autonomous imaginary companion is enough to slap someone with a clinical diagnosis.
Clearly, there is a strong stigma against plural experiences in our society. Hearing voices is considered a telltale sign of mental illness, and as a result, healthily plural systems are frequently accused of having Dissociative Identity Disorder, delusions, and/or demons. In actuality, this belief is not only false, but also harmful to both plural systems and those genuinely suffering from mental illness.
First of all, every single study on non-traumagenic experiences of plurality has found that it can be a perfectly healthy and functional state of being.
A study at the University of Oregon looked at the experiences of children, adolescents, and adults with imaginary friends [1]. What the researchers describe as “the illusion of independent agency”, that is, that the imaginary beings seem to be conscious and sentient, was seen in almost all of the companions, regardless of the age of the host. They found that the creation and interaction with autonomous imaginary friends was not just a healthy and common activity both in early childhood and far beyond, but also that such companions were indicative of empathy and proficiency in socialization.
This effect may be even more significant with tulpamancy, wherein conscious companions are meditated into existence. Samuel Veissiere, a Professor at McGill University, found that autistic tulpamancers, despite their condition, showed no hindrances in theory of mind, suggesting that their empathy had been enhanced [2]. I followed up his research with a study of my own, and found that tulpas can be immune to just about any mental illness. When combined with the fact that most tulpas build a strong, intimate bond with their hosts, tulpas seem to improve one’s ability to cope with almost any condition [3]. The net result is that tulpamancers attribute significant improvements in their social life, mental health, and overall life to their imaginary companions.
T.M. Luhrmann, a professor from Stanford University, investigated evangelical religion, wherein participants experience the presence of gods, communicate with spirits, and even experience their deities as companions [4]. Examples of this range from Brazilian indigenous cultures, where being possessed by spirits is both normal and desirable [5], to some branches of protestant Christianity that encourage one to form an intimate relationship with God [6]. She found these experiences to be generally positive and beneficial, unassociated with mental illness, and found in societies all over the globe. Having an autonomous imaginary companions is not a sign of mental illness. It is a universally human experience.
Despite all of this, hearing voices and experiencing multiple identities is still considered synonymous with mental illness by laymen and mental health professionals alike.
Why is that?
Well, there’s a few reasons. The most obvious explanation is that plurality violates a norm: most people only have one consciousness active in their mind. When something violates our perception of what is normal, we’re quick to assume something is wrong. To quote Samuel Veissiere, “In the globalizing, internet-mediated world of 2016, Tulpamancers have to incur the perverse consequences of a culture in which difference is valorized in principle, but is mostly policed and punished in practice.[9]”
Plurality is a part of the human experience that hasn’t been discussed with the public at large. People only know stereotypes about multiplicity, which are sourced from the most extreme cases of DID. These stereotypes include having an axe murderer alter, which, as the success of the movie Split demonstrates, makes for a great horror movie plot. The negative effect of these violent, deceptive, and untrustworthy plural stereotypes is displayed in the fact that Dissociative Identity Disorder is one of the few mental illnesses that by itself disqualifies someone from working in information security. And even in workplaces that have protections for those with disabilities, multiplicity is viewed in a strictly negative manner, with plural systems perceived as being dangerous and deceptive. The result is that most systems have to keep their plurality secret or risk their relationships, jobs, and reputation.
Not only is this bias harmful to healthily plural systems, but it actually makes the conditions of those who do genuinely suffer from mental illness worse.
The belief that you cannot be plural, hear voices, and also be healthy has led to very inefficient and, in some cases, harmful therapies that are still in use to this day. Treatments for DID that try to “fix” the condition by simply merging the separate altars and enforcing “oneness” often create more problems than they solve. Even in schizophrenia, the practice of treating auditory hallucinations as a problem in itself may be misled.
What’s interesting is that, even though rates of Schizophrenia are consistent worldwide, the severity, hospitalization rate, and likelihood of a recovery vary significantly from culture to culture. Professor Luhrmann conducted a massive, cross-cultural study analyzing the experiences of schizophrenics around the world. She found that the mean, terrifying, threatening, debilitating character most of us associate with schizophrenia appeared almost exclusively in the west-- that is, where hearing voices is heavily stigmatized [7]. In Ghana and India, eastern cultures with no such stigma, the reports were very different. Patients were more likely to report friendly, guiding voices, even hearing the voices of relatives. And when the voices were teasing or mocking, they did so in much less violent ways. Even voices that the respondents disliked tended to simply remind them to fulfill their obligations such as “go to the kitchen and prepare food”, or “you need to eat, but not too much”.
This study shows confirmation bias at its strongest. When you live in a society that teaches you that hearing voices equals mental illness, the voices you hear are probably going to be harmful. The stigma against hearing voices and plurality isn’t just negatively affecting the lives of those who don’t have mental illness. It’s also worsening the symptoms of those who do. Luckily, there is an organization with a radical new therapy that hopes to undo this conditioning.
Hearing Voices is an organization that opposes conventional treatments for schizophrenia. Standard psychotherapies for schizophrenics consider voice-hearing a negative symptom in itself and demand the sufferer try to ignore and block out the auditory hallucinations altogether. Hearing Voices, on the other hand, proposes to engage, rather than ignore, the voices [8]. The manner in which it does this is very reminiscent of tulpamancy. It asks the sufferer to give their voice agency. To find meaning in the auditory hallucinations and give it an identity. Once the voice has an identity, you can reason with it, request that it changes its behavior, or even befriend it. Over time, those who apply this technique find their voices becoming less and less like the western “evil voice” stereotype and more like the sage guides of Eastern schizophrenics. Often, the auditory hallucinations cease altogether. The therapy, although desperately in need of supporting research, is proving itself to be extremely successful at improving the lives of those suffering from schizophrenia and negative auditory hallucinations. This treatment is so effective because it addresses the negativity of the voices as the problem rather than the voices themselves. It focuses on improving happiness and functioning rather than vain attempts to make the client 100 percent “normal”.
Another reason for the bias against plurality is related to how we define mental illness. Today, we understand mental illness as being defined by behaviors that cause harm and/or dysfunction. Well, that wasn’t always the case-- classifications for mental illness used to be far more influenced by social norms. As recently as the the DSM-IV-TR, some disorders did not require dysfunction as a prerequisite. Dissociative Identity Disorder was one of these. According to the DSM, if you have multiple identities, you have a mental illness. Thankfully, this was corrected in 2013 by the DSM-V, which now specifies that someone only has DID if their multiple identities are associated with amnesia and problems with functioning. It also understands that these problems aren’t necessarily rooted in the plurality, but rather, the childhood trauma and abuse that caused it. The way we treat DID has also changed-- teaching the separate identities how to share memories, communicate, and work together through a therapy dubbed “integrated functioning” has, in most cases, proven to more effective than forcing all the alters to integrate into one. Plurality is not a disorder-- even systems with DID can be healthily plural. Unfortunately, these developments are either unknown or ignored by our society and many practicing mental health professionals.
That being said, for every one biased psychiatrist, I hear about at least two or three good ones that understand that something is only a disorder if it causes harm or dysfunction. In turn, they usually end up supporting their client’s practice of tulpamancy.
Still, many experts in the clinical arena will disagree with me and assert that you cannot be plural and healthy. What’s interesting is that, a few decades ago, they were saying the same thing about being gay. Through scientific research and a LOT of public engagement, the bias against LGBT individuals has been greatly reduced. Right now, I’m working towards achieving the same with plurality. It’s going to take a long time for the medical field to recognize that plurality can be a perfectly healthy and functional state of being. But when they do, it’s going to be a very good thing for the treatment of mental illness, the lives of plural systems, and our society as a whole. I want this channel to open people’s minds, to remove biases, and, ultimately, to turn doubters into activists. If you learned something, please subscribe and help the channel grow by sharing the video. Thanks for watching. See you next time.
References
[1]http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/423-taylor07.pdf
[3]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310460591_Tulpamancy_Transcending_the_Assumption_of_Singularity_in_the_Human_Mind?ev=prf_pub
[4]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tanya-luhrmann/when-god-talks-back_b_1373277.html
[5]http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137409591
[6]https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Talks-Back-Understanding/dp/0307277275
[7]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26349837
[8]https://theamericanscholar.org/living-with-voices/#.WL8rDzvys2w
[9]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201604/daring-hear-voices