Frequently Asked Questions About Multiplicity - Integration Edition
everything you always wanted to know about the integration of multiples, but were afraid to ask.

what is integration?
it's a good question, and it has so many answers that we decided it merits its own faq.

usually, people use the word "integration" to refer to what they perceive as some sort of total cure for/solution of/end to multiplicity. most often, especially in the official psychiatry/psychology community, this means taking all the different people and trying to smoosh them all into one identity somehow. they see this as the final stage of "treatment". i've also heard people say they were integrated when it seemed like actually they simply shared a very complete coconsciousness.

i suppose there are as many different kinds of integration as there are multiples who have been integrated.

so how do you do that?
well, people try to accomplish integration different ways. very often, it is the culmination of a process that takes years - at a hospital where i went, they listed four steps: recognition, acceptance, respect, cooperation. most multiples either go through, try to go through, or wish they could go through, at least some of these steps. when you have a community of people who are forced to coexist, it's a good idea to know they're there and to be aware of them. and if you do want to get to that fourth step, cooperation, learning to accept and respect each other in some small degree is often helpful, although i wouldn't say that as a universal truth. certainly it's hard to accept or respect people you have nothing in common with, or who have a completely different set of values.

but anyway, for many people, integration is a sort of fifth step, or maybe the same step as the fourth. first they have to learn about each other, get used to each other. then, eventually, by talking to each other often or extending their awareness or whatever they can do to reach each other, they start to share a little more co-consciousness. again, it should be clear that not all systems do it this way, even if they want to integrate. once there's pretty good co-consciousness, then it might be easier for the two minds to sort of blend in with one another.

as you can see, total integration this way might take a long time, maybe years.

what are the other ways to integrate?
i've heard of people call themselves integrated when it seemed that they had systematically killed or surpressed everyone except one in their system. i've also seen (more often, thankfully) systems who called themselves integrated, when they still retained their individual identities to some small degree, but shared memories and could communicate easily with each other.

why is integration such a controversial topic?
when the psychiatric community got around to identifying multiplicity in its list of disorders, assumptions were made. the first one, of course, was that being multiple is a disorder. since it was seen as a problem, something really wrong, it seems as though everyone just assumed that it needed to be "cured." so, in a lot of contexts, there is an assumption carried that we want to get better, to become "normal", to behave as a single mind.

well, a lot of multiples have problems with this. they like being plural. they don't want to kill off parts of themselves or stuff them into boxes they don't fit into or even all behave as a single person with a single mind.

some people i know don't really believe that integration exists, that it's possible. or that they've never seen a multiple who integrated that didn't "fall apart" again later. for some, integration seems like a socially accepted form of murder. in this context, you can see how things might get heated when people with different viewpoints talk together.

these days, even in the therapuetic/psychiatric community, non-integration seems to be much more accepted. i talked to a therapist that has treated lots of multiples, and she said that she had never personally known a system that wanted to integrate. and she respected that! so.

maybe the volatility of this debate is outdated, and out of place on my page. (o:

if you have a question that this page didn't address, please email me!