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Are tulpas a mental disorder?


Shinyuu

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Everyone’s rushing to call tulpamancy a disorder, DID, or even schizophrenia as soon as they learn it’s not a practical joke and people actually practise tulpamancy. But is tulpamancy a disorder? Is it something you should be concerned about or treated for?

 

Let’s begin with what tulpamancy is definitely not and that’s schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that is thought to have a significant but not solely genetic component; found in about 1% of the population worldwide. Schizophrenia involves a chronic psychosis, characterised by hallucinating (including multimodal hallucinations – i.e. affecting several senses at once), and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality. Contrary to the popular belief, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities and the hallucinations they experience originate from the outwards. In other words people with schizophrenia might hear voices which they would fully perceive as coming from the outside, physically unable to relate to them as being within their mind alone.

 

Tulpamancy, on the other hand, is primarily focused on multiple personality aspect, whereas visualisation and hallucination components are optional and not deemed crucial to the development of a tulpa. While some tulpamancers practise “imposition” also known as overlaying the visual looks of the tulpa over the real world or otherwise sensing them at best it results in pseudo-hallucinations and the tulpamancer has to apply a non-trivial effort to make the illusion stay.

 

Now, though, what about dissociative identity disorder aka DID?

 

Read the article

 

Note from Shinyuus: While the page linked is clean/SFW, other pages/articles on my blog are not. I'm working on that but for now stay aware of this if you thread out of the tulpamancy category. A Medium mirror link pending.

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I understand what you’re trying to do with this article, and because it’s an article I would usually be more inclined to approve it because articles usually just represent the views and opinions of the author which I think are valid even if I disagree with them. However, in this article you are providing data that you have collected which brings with it a different level of scrutiny. You admitted to being ‘specifically vague’ in one of your questions which makes me question the validity of any of the results, and for this reason alone I cannot approve the article. As Hector also pointed out, you have provided no sources for your data.

 

(Edited: Removed extra 'the')

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There are several problems with this submission, most of which are being caused by what seems like an attempt to diagnose tulpamancers. You are not a mental health professional or a doctor, therefore you do not have the credentials to diagnose the tulpa community.

 

However, if you abandon your current thesis and focus on just reporting your survey results, you may be able to re-purpose your data and still produce an article worth reading. Your new thesis can’t say tulpamancers are mentally ill or not and I don’t recommend making a note saying that was your original purpose. This way, you won’t have to throw away the time you invested in doing the data collection to begin with.

 

If you decide you want to revise this, the only safe option you have is to write a report of your data and abandon comparing tulpamancy system behavior to DID diagnosis criteria. If you don’t wish to do that, I wouldn’t attempt working on this because doing so would lead to something that can't be approved.

 

Otherwise, the writing quality was okay. Structure wise, the biggest issue I had was you didn’t consistently connect your data or points to your thesis and vise versa. For instance, the parts written on schizophrenia can be removed entirely and some of your data had little relevance to your thesis. Having a more straightforward purpose will help resolve this issue.

 

Your points not having any citations hurts your submission the most since I cannot even verify if you are paraphrasing the criteria for DID or if that criteria even came from the DSM V. If you are going to revise this submission, you must cite any sources you plan on using, including yourself since you use your previous work as a source.

 

I broke down the specific review into three parts. Even though the second section points out problems that will be resolved by abandoning your current thesis, reading over them may help you avoid general problems in the future.

 

Problems you should consider fixing for your next draft:

 

[hidden]

I ran a quick poll and got 184 replies [...]

 

Where and when did you host the poll? This will need to be specified.

 

(thanks everyone who took part in my study)

 

This can be included in the conclusion of your next draft.

 

Walk-ins

 

Unless they self-identify as non-tulpa, a walk-in or accidental tulpa is not different from a tulpa. I'm not sure why you added that criteria since it did not relate to your former research question. However, you may be able to include this data if you changed your research question to accommodate it.

 

plurals

 

Please use "headmate", "systemmate", or "thoughtform", not "plurals". "Plurals" are the systems themselves, not individual headmates.

 

We can see that walk-ins aren’t a common sight in the tulpamancy communities.

 

That conclusion does not appear to be accurate. If you factor in "Others", which you defined as systems with both intentionally made tulpas and walk-ins, that's 33% of systems.

 

The overwhelming majority was clear on this: [...]

 

At this point in this draft, you went off topic and focused on your data. Ironically, this is good news and a sign that you can salvage this without too much trouble. However, the writing structure is incorrect. For instance, consider the section this quote came from:

 

Let’s move on. Do tulpas cause distress?

 

When you introduce data, make sure your topic sentence sums up why you are showing your reader the data in the first place; don't say the question your data answers first. Instead, first state the connection to your thesis, then show the data and what question it is answering, and finally explain why the data supports that connection. I saw this in some places, but in places like this section and the section the quote is from, it wasn't obvious.

 

Only sixty-six per cent tulpas are able to control the body – the remaining third failing even the initial DID criterion.

 

Your assumptions here make it sound like those tulpas will never learn to control the body, which isn't true. It's possible these tulpas cannot switch yet because they are young or they have not learned it yet.

 

On another note, I can control the body through possession without having to switch, which is a weakness to this particular question. (Don't forget to reject the second part of this sentence.)

 

In countries like Japan or Russia tulpas rarely possess the body or even communicate with people outside of their mind.

 

I would add that data in next time or provide a link to that data so people can verify what you are saying.

 

If you check [my overview] of the tulpa census [...]

 

I don't know why you have [my overview] like that, but more importantly you need to tell me how old your census was and link to it.

 

[/hidden]

 

Problems that cannot be resolved for approval, but should be considered when making your next draft:

 

[hidden]

Everyone’s rushing to call tulpamancy a disorder, DID, or even schizophrenia as soon as they learn it’s not a practical joke and people actually practise tulpamancy.

 

First of all you shouldn't say "everyone" is rushing to call tulpamancy a disorder, and second, who says that? I have heard people unfamiliar with it wanting to call tulpamancy DID and or schizophrenia, but not a separate disorder in of itself.

 

Second, your paragraphs do not line up with your thesis. First you give me schizophrenia, then DID, and then ask if tulpamancy is a disorder. For future reference, make sure that the points you state in your thesis line up with the points you present in your body.

 

Is it something you should be concerned about or treated for?

 

This or anything similar to this shouldn't be in the next draft of your essay.

 


 

* * *

 

For this article, the connection to schizophrenia has no relevance to your data and it didn't have any relevance to your thesis. You can scrap all of the references to schizophrenia.

 

DID is basically a condition when you have several distinct personalities who perceive themselves independent from each other and aren’t caused by a broadly accepted cultural practice (like imaginary people in kids or shamanic possessions) or drugs.

 

For future reference, tulpamancy can get grouped under "imaginary friends" or "shamanic possession" category since tulpamancy is an applied cultural practice, despite the fact it isn't well known.

 

One of the reasons for the renaming was that {DSM-IV} stated: [...]

 

When you stated this, I thought the criteria you were pulling from was from the DSM IV and not the DSM V, the DSM IV being over 20 years old. This won't apply to your next draft, but I wanted to point this out.

 

But what does that all mean in a plain speak?

 

If you include a quoted chunk of text, it's only adding unnecessary length to the article if you have to say this. It would be easier to sum up the text block or paraphrase it so you can more efficiently elaborate the text and reduce clutter.

 

(you know, the one where you go to the doc and say “help me”, not the one where your SO dumped you).

 

This isn't a great example because some people may need therapy for this, especially if getting dumped looked more like a divorce. This isn't relevant to your next draft, but I wanted to point it out.

 

Tulpas are a perfect fit for the first DID criteria [...]

 

Aside from the fact you shouldn't make this claim in your next draft, "perfect" doesn't even make sense. None of your data said 100% for anything, so at best it would be a "good" fit. Your diction should be consistent with your wording.

 

[...] (and who’s gonna read past that?), [...]

 

Normally, a trained physician would. Avoid this claim in general please.

 

How many tulpas can switch or possess the body for at least a couple minutes?

 

Given the context of that statement, it makes it sound like switching is the same in both systems. It's not.

 

I was specifically vague in this question, not specifying the “clinical” part.

 

For your original thesis, this would mean your data is useless since you were attempting to diagnose tulpamancers. When you make your next draft, make sure your data meets the expectation of your claims.

 

Thus we cannot state that tulpas case clinically significant distress.

 

For future reference, if you are bringing up a question you are going to answer in your essay with polling data, don't set the expectation you are going to answer it and then not answer it.

 

On the contrary, the memory loss for the people diagnosed with DID is severe, they have no option to regain the missed memories and most of them cannot directly communicate with their alters.

 

This is false. Part of the treatment for a DID system is to open up communication among that system's alters and regain the separate memories.

 

Clearly, tulpamancy as it [...]

 

"Clearly" isn't a good word to use because if it was clear, then your argument would be irrelevant.

 

A well-known example of what could be considered a multiple personality (but not a disorder) is Leonard Nimoy’s Spock.

 

Like what Piano already said, this is a tangent that didn't relate to your thesis.

[/hidden]

 

Minor grammar issues worth considering:

 

[hidden]

Schizophrenia involves a chronic psychosis

 

Remove the "a".

 

While some tulpamancers practise “imposition” also known as overlaying the visual looks of the tulpa over the real world or otherwise sensing them at best, [...]

 

Here you basically said "also known as" twice since " or otherwise" and "also known as" are interchangeable in this context. I would merge these two descriptions into one and take out one of these phrases.

 

In addition, I would add a comma there.

 

Twenty-nine per cent of tulpas [...]

 

Add "of".

[/hidden]

 

I cannot consider approving this unless you fix the major problems I and the other GAT members have already stated: Don’t write this article to diagnose people, add citations, and make sure your sources are reliable. If you follow through with redrafting this, I believe you will have a much stronger draft and a much higher chance of getting approval.

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

DSM-V, criteria #4.

 

"4. The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices. This DID criterion is to eliminate diagnosis in cultures or situations where multiplicity is appropriate. An example of this is in children where an imaginary friend is not necessarily indicative of mental illness."

 

This is a community where multiplicity is appropriate and indeed encouraged. People who fail to produce self-satisfactory results towards that end often become frustrated and leave. Imo, that settles the entire issue right there.

 

That said, a reminder of #3 just to make a point.

 

"3. The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder. This criterion is common among all serious mental illness diagnoses as a diagnosis is not appropriate where the symptoms do not create distress and/or trouble functioning."

 

Someone who is a part of a tulpa/soulbond or what have you, subculture, and is not distressed or has trouble functioning in life because of tulpas/soulbonds/etc, then they fail two of the criteria and that's too little to even be diagnosed with OSDD.

 

A little nitpick too, correct me if I'm wrong, that DDNOS was just the old name for OSDD, just as MPD was the old name for DID. It doesn't have less strict requirements to be diagnosed, as OSDD is already a catchall category.

 

Alters are NOT tulpas, and tulpas are NOT alters. Someone who intentionally created their headmates doesn't qualify in the least for a medical DID diagnosis. Could someone dabble into tulpa-style plurality then, oops, find out that they actually had alters and DID all along? Yes, it's possible.. Though statistically unlikely.

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I agree with you Reilyn, but I'm not sure what portion of psychiatrists are willing to accept subcultural practices, especially those of online subcultures, as "normal" cultural practices. Looking at a different part of the spectrum between DID and tulpamancy -- fifteen to twenty-five years ago, the members of the empowered multiple community routinely ran into pushback from mental health professionals when they alleged that multiple systems were not necessarily traumagenic, were not necessarily disordered, and would not necessarily benefit from integration.

 

DSM-5 split DSM-4's Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) into Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) and Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (UDD). UDD does have broader diagnostic criteria, but still requires clinically significant distress or impairment. I had never heard of it until today myself, but it roughly fits what seems to be Shinyuu's intent in mentioning DDNOS:

 

http://traumadissociation.com/udd.html

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

Now that you mention it, I know someone who was diagnosed with UDD, but like it says in that link, it was done because it was a "filler" diagnosis. The mental health professional saw enough to keep leaning towards either a DID or OSDD diagnosis but wanted to spend more time making sure and doing research and didn't want to explain themselves so they just said UDD.

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But is tulpamancy a disorder?

 

 

Tulpamancy is a practice, an art, so it doesn't make sense to call it a disorder. The state of having tulpas, is I think what you mean. For example, you wouldn't ask, "Is sky diving a disorder?" But you might ask, "Are people who love jumping out of planes mentally ill?"

 

Let’s begin with what tulpamancy is definitely not, and that’s schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that is thought to have a significant but not solely genetic component; found in about 1% of the population worldwide. Schizophrenia involves a chronic psychosis, characterised by hallucinating (including multimodal hallucinations – i.e. affecting several senses at once), and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality. Contrary to the popular belief, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities and the hallucinations they experience originate from the outwards. In other words, people with schizophrenia might hear voices which they would fully perceive as coming from the outside, physically unable to relate to them as being within their mind alone.

Grammar note: A comma should be used here instead of a semi-colon as "found in about 1% of the population worldwide" is not an independent clause.

 

"Thinking or believing things with no basis in reality" is part of why people think tulpamancy is inducing schizophrenia. You haven't explained how tulpas and paranoid delusions are different.

 

Tulpamancy, on the other hand, is primarily focused on multiple personality aspect, whereas visualisation and hallucination components are optional and not deemed crucial to the development of a tulpa. While some tulpamancers practise “imposition” also known as overlaying the visual looks of the tulpa over the real world or otherwise sensing them at best it results in pseudo-hallucinations and the tulpamancer has to apply a non-trivial effort to make the illusion stay.

Visualization and imposition may be optional, but you haven't differentiated them from schizophrenic hallucinations if the tulpamancer chooses to pursue them. "At best it results in pseudo-hallucinations" implies imposition is less real in appearance, or doesn't count as hallucinations? Imposition is creating a controlled hallucination. The article does not mention important ways having tulpas is not like schizophrenia like, it's not disordered, it doesn't cause dysfunction or distress, the state is voluntary, there are no paranoid delusions, the tulpamancer knows an imposed image is not real, it's missing other symptoms of schozophrenia like disordered speech, catatonia, etc. There are so many ways you could explain the difference, and instead it's somewhat ambiguous.

 

DID is basically a condition when you have several distinct personalities who perceive themselves independent from each other and aren’t caused by a broadly accepted cultural practice (like imaginary people in kids or shamanic possessions) or drugs. The existence of those personalities has to cause you non-trivial memory loss, including the recall of everyday events, and the symptoms of having several personalities has to cause you clinically severe distress (you know, the one where you go to the doc and say “help me”, not the one where your SO dumped you).

"Imaginary people" sounds odd, I think "imaginary friends" is the standard way to describe them. This is a lot of cram into two sentence. It could be described better in simple terms using more sentences, and avoid parentheses. It's more paraphrasing than plain speak. And shouldn't we be using the DSM-5 not 4?

 

Let’s try to apply the DID criteria to tulpamancers.

Suggestion: Let's see if having tulpas fits the DID criteria.

 

Walk-ins are a kind of plurals

Plurals is the wrong word, I've never seen headmates, alters, or tulpas called "plurals." Something like "Walk-ins are a kind of headmate" would be fine.

 

a character from the book you are reading setting in your mind

I'm not sure what "setting in your mind means." Settling in?

 

What your host ever distressed because of you?

Why word the question in this intentionally vague way? Now the data technically says tulpas cause distress, but the degree or type of distress and the reasons are unknown. "Now, of course it’s expected that interacting with a different person will cause you distress." That's a strange way to phrase things. Rather, it's normal to experience distress at some point when interacting with other people, because we can't all get a long 24/7. Is the distress caused by tulpas the normal "can't get along with people 100% of the time" kind of distress? The article doesn't show one way or another and doesn't clearly establish that it's not clinically significant distress.

 

Fifteen more per cent didn’t manage to regain the memories

The wording is awkward, I suggest "Fifteen more per cent did not manage." "Twenty-nine per cent tulpas" should be "Twenty-nine per cent of tulpas."

 

The survey shows 15% of tulpas and 9% of hosts experienced memory loss. As a reader I find these numbers more concerning than reassuring. And you don't have an actual comparison for amnesia in people with DID.

 

This format with the pie charts for tulpamancy, compared to the DSM-IV descriptions and the author's take is not working well in my opinion. You're summarizing that having tulpas is not like DID, but the charts don't support the conclusions. The follow up then states things like "tulpas don’t exhibit such behaviour," but there's no source to back it up or reason for the reader to think "oh, tulpas really aren't like DID then." You're appealing to scientific data with the (informal) survey, but there's no research or interviews to give a sense for why 65% of hosts feeling distressed by tulpas or 9% of hosts suffering memory loss is not a reason for concern or comparison to DID.

 

As the article wraps up, the DSM-IV points 4 and 5 have not been addressed. The most important aspect of distress/disorder/dysfunction is not well addressed or supported by the survey results. The last few paragraphs are full of new points that have not been talked about. The article has done nothing to explain "we're not confused about what we are" and that would have been a good point to make--that we intentionally create and maintain tulpas as a sort of cultural practice. That point one of the criteria is actually the goal. Tulpamancers don't acquire tulpas through trauma, or suffer from confusion, disorder, lack of communication, or delusions. The article also does not clarify how having tulpas is not like schizophrenia and that imposition is different from schizophrenic uncontrolled hallucinations. Overall the article does not do a good job of arguing that having tulpas is not a mental disorder. Disapproved for articles.

Host: YukariTelepath

Tulpas: Aya, Ruki

 

Imposition log

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Gavin here :) 

I'm afraid the thesis and supporting arguments of your article need reworking. "Are tulpas a mental disorder?" in itself is a bit strange wording, like YukariTelepath pointed out. I do think there is merit for something reassuring people new to tulpamancy, "it is not a mental illness", but I would rather see that statement from a professional. 

 

Going forward, you might want to see if you can find some reputable people to quote from. The Hearing Voices Network might be a good place to look, as well as any interviews with Tanya Luhrmann. Your polling data, as pointed out, is not especially valuable without comparison to DID systems. The DSM is a good source, but I think you really missed the mark on Criterion 4. Tulpamancy is a cultural practice! It's both a cultural practice, and non-distressing in most cases, and only rarely causes any form of memory loss or confusion. These are the three points I would hit hardest, if explaining to someone how tulpamancy is not inducing mental illness. 

 

Disapproved for articles.

The world is far, the world is wide; the man needs someone by his side. 

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Summary (10/23):

 

"Not approved" - 6 reviews

"Will approve once changes are made" - 1 review

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"At best it results in pseudo-hallucinations" implies imposition is less real in appearance, or doesn't count as hallucinations? Imposition is creating a controlled hallucination. The article does not mention important ways having tulpas is not like schizophrenia like, it's not disordered, it doesn't cause dysfunction or distress, the state is voluntary, there are no paranoid delusions, the tulpamancer knows an imposed image is not real, it's missing other symptoms of schozophrenia like disordered speech, catatonia, etc.

 

For what it's worth:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudohallucination

A pseudohallucination is an involuntary sensory experience vivid enough to be regarded as a hallucination, but considered by the person as subjective and unreal, unlike "true" hallucinations, which are considered real by patients with psychological disorders.

 

The term is not the prefered one for the phenomena among mental health professionals, but Shinyuu's use of it, by its most widely accepted definition, should not imply a limit on the vividness of imposition, only that imposition is known to be not physically real. And that is an important point in making a case for tulpamancer sanity. But even if Shinyuu was not coining the term afresh, the point would need to be unpacked to educate a general audience.

 

Of course, imposition still doesn't qualify for the term, since pseudohallucinations are involuntary.

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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