Dr. John O’Neil is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Montreal Québec.

He was Assistant Professor of psychiatry at McGill University and staff psychiatrist at St. Mary’s Hospital until his retirement to private practice in June 2018.

Dr. O’Neil joined the ISSMP&D in 1991, and has attended every conference since then. His private practice has progressively narrowed to the diagnosis and treatment of dissociative disorders.

Over the years, Dr O’Neil:

• became a Fellow of the ISSTD;

• co-taught ISSTD’s day-long introductory workshop for 8 years,

• hosted the Town Hall Meetings for 6 years,

• became an ASCH Approved Consultant, and

• has taught in the ISSTD’s Professional Training Program at all adult levels except the master class, in Montreal and in Burlington VT, and on line.

In 2009, the 46-chapter book Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: DSM-V and Beyond was published, co-edited by Paul Dell and O’Neil, for which O’Neil received ISSTD’s Pierre Janet Writing Award.

He is currently an assistant editor of the planned second edition of this book, now being co-edited by Past Presidents Martin Dorahy and Steve Gold.

Following his interview, Dr. O’Neil added the following:

The structuralists (Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, etc.) also don’t include DP/DR [depersonalization / derealization] in dissociation, limiting dissociation rather narrowly to what I call dissociative multiplicity and they call structural dissociation. It's the co-presence of more than one entity with their own first-person senses that ‘structure’ is all about.

And as for ‘functional’ or ‘faculty’ dissociation, they call this ‘somatoform dissociation’ (esp. Ellert), but only when it is a surface symptomatic presentation of underlying structural dissociation.

So some differences are semantic. One difference is multiplication vs division; another is deep vs surface.

Regarding arithmetic metaphors, I prefer multipliction, and the structuralists prefer division.

So they talk about the structural division of the one personality (in the singular) into parts (plural), whereas I talk about the multiplication of centres of consciousness into multiple personalities (in the plural).

That also means that their ‘personality’ is deep and singular (though divided), whereas my ‘personality’ is more surface, and multiple.

Their DID patient has a number of parts of the personality, whereas my did patient has a number of personalities.

It comes through with their referencing of Myers, from whom they borrowed the Emotional Personality (EP) and the Apparently Normal Personality (ANP); I am at ease with these labels, but structuralists insist on ‘tweaking’ it to Emotional Part of the Personality (EP) and the Apparently Normal Part of the Personality.