When the criminal is in the head: a real story

In October 1977, 23-year-old William Milligan was arrested near Ohio University in Columbus (USA). He was suspected of three cases of rape that occurred on campus within two weeks. The circumstances were very similar: the criminal lay in wait for women near the campus, took them to a deserted area at gunpoint, raped them, and then forced them to go to an ATM and withdraw money.

During a search of Milligan’s apartment, they found a gun, handcuffs, a stolen credit card, and clothing. There was no doubt that he was behind the rapes. However, the police questioned the sanity of the detainee.

Conversations with the psychologist showed that he “has no clear idea of ​​what he is accused of. Also, he is incapable of interacting with a lawyer for his own defense.” The newspapers got the phrase that Milligan said in response to one of the questions: “Billy is sleeping. I’m David.”

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body for hire

The trial took place a few months later. In addition to the rapes, Milligan was also accused of three robberies. On each of the counts, he faced from 4 to 25 years in prison. The district attorney chose the accusers himself, instructing them to seek the harshest possible punishment. The defense did not deny: the defendant really robbed and raped women. But this is only the outer side of the matter.

The bottom line is that at the time of the crimes, the real Milligan was unconscious. He has been “in a dream” for the past seven years. The crimes were committed by those who “owned his body.” In particular, “Adalana”, a young lesbian, is guilty of rape, who thus tried to satisfy her lust. But there were others: the sophisticated Englishman Arthur, the militant Yugoslav Reigen, the fraudster Allen …

Lawyers demanded that Milligan be declared insane on the basis of the conclusion drawn up by a commission of psychiatrists. According to them, the young man had a rare diagnosis – “multiple personality” – and he himself was a victim of his own illness and needed help. The court listened to these arguments: Milligan was released from criminal prosecution and sent to compulsory treatment “until he recovers.”

The verdict of the court was so unexpected, and the conclusion of the doctors so intriguing, that the curiosity of the public overcame the desire for retribution. However, not everyone agreed with the decision of the judge. A relative of one of the victims called the defense’s statements “nonsense”. “They are making a folk hero out of this guy,” he was indignant. Among the doctors, too, there were those who doubted the veracity of this story.

Skeptics speak out

“Multiple personality is just a figure of speech. This is nothing but a fake, says Thomas Zatz, a professor of psychiatry at New York University, who has more than a dozen books to his credit. How many personalities did Laurence Olivier or Elizabeth Taylor have? We all play some role. But we have only one personality.

Another critic is Dr. Hervey Cleckley, co-author of The Three Faces of Eve, which popularized the phenomenon of multiple personality. In his opinion, there is a great danger that the psychiatric term “will be interpreted distortedly” – as a real coexistence in one body of several personalities, and not as a splitting of one personality into several fragments, “which this state actually is.”

Gift for journalists

From the very beginning of the trial, the attention of the press was riveted to the process. It was the press that was largely responsible for creating the image of a man of mystery. To stir up sensationalism, the authors of the articles stated, for example, that Milligan’s IQ was at the level of a genius – 150, while from the written reports of psychiatrists it followed that even the smartest of Milligan’s “personalities” did not exceed 129.

Articles in leading publications claimed that Milligan’s adoptive father Chalmer raped and humiliated him when he was a child. The facts of bullying were confirmed in court by Milligan’s mother, his older brother and sister. The latter, during interviews with reporters, could hardly restrain her emotions and, recalling those years, called them “terrible.” Chalmer Milligan, who lived in Lancaster, denied all accusations. “They are just liars. I didn’t have time to do all this,” he said.

In childhood abuse, psychiatrists have seen the key to late behavioral changes. It was from this, allegedly, that the appearance of “side” personalities began. True, in describing the details, they often relied only on the words of Billy himself. And all the reservations and assumptions, having migrated from expert opinions to the pages of newspapers, became unconditional facts.

Inner Defenders

Multiple personality disorder, according to psychiatrists, arises as the strongest defensive reaction of the psyche in response to a traumatic event. In the case of Billy Milligan, doctors suggested that his inability to survive his father’s abuse led to the emergence of nine additional personalities – seven male and two female, ranging in age from three to 22 years old.

Psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur recalls that Billy’s side “personalities” feared that he would commit suicide, and therefore removed him from control of the body. They had to be literally convinced of the need to “wake up” him.

Wilbur said that when it finally happened, “Billy looked around the room. I have never seen a person look so frightened.” The police officers who dealt with Milligan were amazed at how abruptly he made transitions between his manner of speaking and holding on, gestures. “He had different accents, he sat differently on the chair,” one of them said.

According to Wilbur, in cases of split personality, “amnesia is always present.” If, before therapy, the “core” – the original part of the personality – remembers what other parts of it did, or at least suspects their presence, then there is a chance for success in therapy.

Plurality or imitation?

However, all this evidence does not convince skeptics. Zatz insists that the manifestation of dozens of “personalities” is actually the patient’s reaction to the style of therapy work: “She (the psychologist who examined Milligan) did not ‘find’ these personalities, but she herself invented and instilled them into him.”

This idea is also supported by the fact that in the process of treatment the number of “personalities” in the body of Billy Milligan increased to 24. All of them “came out” for conversations alternately, and some knew about each other.

Emmanuel Berman of Yeshiva University, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on multiple personality, agrees that sometimes “analysts themselves inadvertently influence the phenomena they observe. The therapist’s expectations can trigger an unconscious response in the patient, provoking the creation of new personalities.” Most often this happens with individuals belonging to the hysterical type. “They act like children,” says Cleckley. “They pay attention to everything that can draw attention to them and amplify it.”

Cleckley received many letters over the years from convicts claiming to suffer from multiple personality syndrome. In many cases, he says, distinguishing true disorders from simulation and fantasy is extremely difficult. In the case of a real diagnosis, we are usually talking about two or three “fragments” of the personality. Five, ten and even fifty individuals are a reason to treat statements with skepticism.

Variant of the norm

Another question that arose among specialists is whether the diagnosis of “multiple personality” itself means that its owner cannot be responsible for his actions? Wilbur noted that this condition should rather be classified as a neurosis than a psychosis (in which the mental state is considered to be more disturbed). In her book The Sibyl, she cites her words to a patient: “The nature of your condition is not one of schizophrenia, but of dissociation. Don’t call yourself crazy, you’re sane.” “When it comes to responsibility and the concept of “sound mind”, it refers to the practice of law, not medical practice,” Wilbur clarifies.

In a textbook on psychoanalysis by Nancy McWilliams, published in 1994, the dissociative personality was already included as one of the types of personality structure. This meant recognizing that the periodic switching between personal states for some people is a natural reaction to stress and suffering.

According to McWilliams, it is more about the experience of different selves than about the actual “coexistence” in one body of several full-fledged personalities. But in a situation of psychosis, it may indeed seem to patients that dozens of separate “residents” are seizing control of their body, endowed with a separate character and biography.

In 1988, after ten years of treatment, experts agreed that Milligan’s personalities had merged into one. Three years later, he was released from custody and then disappeared from public view. In 2014, he died at the age of 59. He never got to the police again. It is difficult to say what his life could have been if the circumstances had turned out differently: if he had received therapeutic assistance on time or, on the contrary, had been recognized by the court as sane.

“Many psychotic-level dissociative people are in prisons, not mental hospitals,” writes Nancy McWilliams. On the other hand, attempts to treat dissociative people in the past often led to even more traumatization due to misdiagnosis, high doses of tranquilizers and electric shock.

Perhaps recognizing “multiple personality” as a feature rather than a disease will pave the way for a fuller understanding of such people. And the case of Billy Milligan is one of the important steps in this direction.

Source: Columbusmonthly.com