When Rabbit Howls » (Reprint)

To escape the horror of violent abuse, the two-year-old child "went to sleep" and created the inner world of "the Troops, " the 92 voices that shielded her from pain, but that ...

Library Journal

The strange world inhabited by those afflicted with schizophrenia or multiple personality syndrome is virtually impenetrable. By illuminating these convoluted worlds, both books make major contributions to the understanding of mental illness. North began to exhibit manifestations of schizophrenia as a child. Desite her acceptance of ``voices'' and ``visions'' as reality, the reader can easily identify with her as she struggles through her schooling. She graphically descibes her breakdowns and traumatic hospitalizations during her college years and in medical school. Her eventual success in conquering her disability and attaining her goal of becoming a physician evokes a sense of exhilaration. Unlike North's book, which is clearly focused, When Rabbit Howls is disconnected, disjointed, fragmented. Written while undergoing psychotherapy by a woman who had been severely abused sexually as a child, the book shows us scores of personalities who do not even recognize that they dwell in one body. Amazingly, the woman who sought therapy was not considered abnormal by her close friends. Phillips, the treating psychotherapist, believes that many sexually abused children develop multiple personalities as a defense mechanism. The emergence of individuals with names like Miss Wonderful, Outrider, Nails, Tunnel, and Mean Joe, who submerge themselves so that only one image is publicly presented, makes for fascinating, provocative reading. Carol R. Glatt, New Jersey Bioethics Commission, Trenton