{"id":668,"date":"2015-01-02T21:19:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T02:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/?page_id=668"},"modified":"2026-04-20T22:41:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T02:41:34","slug":"div3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/articles\/div3\/","title":{"rendered":"Divisions in Plurality, 3.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Dawkins, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written two articles, one in 2007<\/a> and the other in 2009<\/a>, about divisions within the plural community. Hess has also discussed it fairly recently in a Tumblr post where he complained about the negative attitudes toward non-medical-model plurality<\/a>. My opinions about plural “turf wars” still stand, but I\u2019ve noticed some differences in the five and a half years between writing “Divisions in Plurality 2.0” and the way things are now. Much of the discussion about multiplicity online, especially non-trauma-based forms, is now based on Tumblr as opposed to journalling sites like Livejournal, Dreamwidth, or Diaryland, or mailing lists like Dark Personalities in the late nineties and early 2000s. The issues I\u2019m addressing in this article refer to the state of the online plural community in 2015, as the previous ones are a bit out of date where community dynamics are concerned.<\/p>\n

Endogenic (‘natural’) plurals and soulbonders<\/em>
\nIf you\u2019ve read my previous articles, the soulbonders were listed as a separate camp, but things seem to have changed dramatically in the online plural communities. People who would have been called soulbonders in the past, for example, are often included amongst the endogenic (also known as “natural,” or systems who didn’t emerge via trauma) plurals, and the commonest models for endogenic plurality seen on Tumblr resemble the people who would have referred to themselves as soulbonders in 2006. They tend to have one or two “hosts” that are connected with their presenting selves when they\u2019re not openly plural, and several system members that may or may not take control of the shared body and aren\u2019t necessarily in charge of their collective life (though they may be). Systems without hosts, like ours, still exist but the current perception of endogenic plurality seems to be focussed on the people we would have called soulbonders or medians. Many members of this camp don\u2019t express any ill-will toward classic trauma-split systems, but some do, which is not helpful to the community as a whole.<\/p>\n

The tulpamancers<\/em>
\nThere is also a new camp to add to the endogenic plurals, the soulbonders and the classic trauma-based systems: tulpamancers. “Tulpamancers” are people who deliberately create conscious entities, or “thoughtforms,” through focussed meditation, self-hypnosis and similar practices. According to the tulpamancers, fully fledged people can emerge from this process and share headspace with them. We\u2019re not tulpamancers and know less about this part of the community than we do the natural plurals, soulbonders, and trauma-split systems, but I\u2019ve got enough basic knowledge to understand the principles behind it. Admittedly I am a bit critical of the way some tulpamancers approach their way of doing things: they\u2019re known for practising cultural appropriation, and they\u2019ve been dismissive toward trauma-based systems and have tried to invalidate their experiences. The “tulpas” tag<\/a> on the Hydracorn system\u2019s DID blog contains many common criticisms of tulpamancers regarding cultural appropriation and dismissive behaviour toward trauma-based\/DID systems. I\u2019m ambivalent about the deliberate creation of system members, but regardless of their origins it\u2019s counterproductive for people to attack people for having trauma-based origins.<\/p>\n

Trauma-based systems and the medical model<\/em>
\nThere are still some DID systems who are invested in the medical model being the one proper way to experience plurality and criticise people who don\u2019t view their plurality that way. There\u2019s a blog on Tumblr called “This Is Not Dissociative<\/a>” that leans very strongly toward favouring the medical model over others, and being actively dismissive to people who don\u2019t fit into it. There seems to be some tension even within the DID community itself (even between people who don\u2019t think that integration is always necessary), with some people seeing alters as fully-fledged people, whilst others emphasise the idea that all alters are part of an overarching “true person”\u2014in these cases, they\u2019re often called ego states or parts.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are criteria that define what the diagnostic category of dissociative identity disorder is. Yes, trauma-based dissociation exists. No, non-DID systems shouldn\u2019t try and make out that dissociative splitting doesn\u2019t occur. It\u2019s counterproductive and invalidates the trauma these people have gone through in order to experience that level of splitting.<\/p>\n

I do think it\u2019s important to recognise that trauma-based multiplicity does exist, and we shouldn\u2019t take disordered forms of multiplicity lightly. There are systems who can\u2019t cooperate, lose time, have blackouts or experience other forms of dissociation and depersonalisation that can have a detrimental effect on their functionality. The problem arises, however, when people assume that the phenomenon of experiencing different conscious entities in a body is the disordered aspect, not the functionality of a system. We can see plurality or multiplicity as a wider category whilst making distinctions between different sub-types to determine the needs of a particular plural system. This is close to the diagnostic approaches toward mental health anyway: the condition has to affect somebody\u2019s functioning or cause distress in order to be considered disordered in the first place. People who need support after trauma need and deserve that support, whilst those of us who may not have had our system members arise from post-traumatic splitting should also be able to have our personhood recognised. (We ourselves don\u2019t actually know what our ultimate origins are; in the past, we referred to ourselves as a natural system, but we\u2019ve moved away from focussing on original causes, especially since we have had trauma in the past, and there is some disagreement amongst system members about what we believe our origins are.)<\/p>\n

Fortunately\u2026<\/em>
\nNot every system gets involved with all the turf wars, of course; there are systems whose members\u2019 existence may be put down to post-traumatic dissociation but they recognise their “alters” as separate people, not as being different parts or aspects of an original person. LB Lee, a system who were created through trauma, have written about being survivors of trauma and about regarding their system members as separate people with their own interests, skills and feelings. They don\u2019t see the existence of their system itself as the problem<\/a>, but the traumatic processes that caused them to split in the first place. We probably wouldn\u2019t meet the criteria for DID ourselves and we don\u2019t know our origins, but we understand that plurality may not be pleasant or easy for all systems, especially those who have emerged via trauma and haven\u2019t worked out a good communication system or a way to manage lost time. There are also systems who may fall under more than one of those categories, like systems who may have originated in trauma may end up later on with members who aren\u2019t specifically considered splits (LB are one of those systems, in fact), or systems that have many fictiv emembers, but those introjected members exist because of a traumatic experience. Everyone\u2019s experience is different, and it isn\u2019t our place to condemn others because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Dawkins, 2015 I\u2019ve written two articles, one in 2007 and the other in 2009, about divisions within the plural community. Hess has also discussed it fairly recently in a Tumblr post where he complained about the negative attitudes toward non-medical-model plurality. My opinions about plural “turf wars” still stand, but I\u2019ve noticed some differences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"coauthors":[12],"class_list":{"0":"post-668","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1738,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668\/revisions\/1738"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}