A Note On the BBC Horizon Documntary
"Mistaken Identity"

Click here to read a transcript of Mistaken Identity in its entirety

According to Lea of Linda Massey's system, they cut out all the good parts in which Linda explained what multiplicity is and how it happens; she also mentioned that they do not see themselves as disordered, but explained how it was a normal state of being for them.

At one point, Linda said she did not understand all of the therapy goals, but then went on to explain that she knew what had occurred in therapy and how it had helped her group. The producers cut everything right after Linda saying "I'm actually not really sure myself."

Linda speculated that multiplicity was not necessarily related to abuse, but was one of those wonders of the human mind that was not fully understood. Naturally, they cut this as well, particularly since the Masseys admit openly that they were abused, so any concept that they might have been multiple anyway can be chalked up to denial.

They also managed to leave out everything the group said refuting the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

The group said many things that could have been used to make a really good, straight, informative program about what being multiple really is. But it was all left on the cutting room floor. Lea said that the overall effect of the editing made the group (and the other groups who were interviewed for the show) look like a lot of gullible twits being fed their lines by the psychiatric community.

Here is the result. This is how multiple personality was seen by the British viewing public as a result of that programme.

Horizon (BBC2) struggled to keep a straight face while examining the phenomenon of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). This ludicrous condition apparently didn't exist until somebody made a film called Sybil, based on a "true" story of a woman sufferer. Next thing you knew, psychiatrists' waiting rooms were crammed with patients - all Americans, funnily enough - babbling away in stupid voices and claiming to have 12 different people living inside the same head.

MPD has all the symptoms of a bogus ailment invented by the therapy industry, and sceptical psychiatrists expressed the view that patients had been encouraged to invent personalities by their doctors. Horizon's chosen patients were extremely damaging to any lingering credibility MPD may have. We saw Sue, under hypnosis, adopting a little-girl voice to enact the part of Sandy, one of her repertoire of "multiples". It was like watching a fraudulent medium pretending to hear spirit voices. As for Linda, with her snapshots of herself dressed up as her own multiple personalities, she deserved to be pelted with rotten fruit and run out of town.
The Guardian, November 12, 1999.