The Crowded Room

Image titled Danny Sullivan by Obligated, used under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 License

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Review of The Crowded Room TV series with a Brief History of Multiple Personality Disorder and Ego State Therapy

Warning: This program contains violence, sexual content, drug use, language, and disturbing emotional content. It is rated as TV-MA (for “mature” audiences). This program is not for children.

Spoiler Warning: This review contains major spoilers.

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Background of the series

The Crowded Room is a 10-episode series released on June 23, 2023 and streams on Apple TV (check out the trailer here). The series was developed by Akiva Goldsman who wrote the screenplay for the movie A Beautiful Mind.  The main character Danny Sullivan is played by Spider-Man actor Tom Holland who was also an Executive Producer of the series. The Crowded Room takes place in the 1970’s and was inspired by the real-life story of Billy Mulligan who was the first person in history who was acquitted of serious crimes by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity due to having Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD; now called DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder). Daniel Keyes’ non-fiction book The Minds of Billy Milligan tells the story of Billy’s experiences including the abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather and his struggle with MPD.

As some of you may know, I’m trained in Ego State Therapy (EST) and I was recently in conversation with EST consultant and co-founder of Ego State Therapy International, Wendy Lemke. She told me about this program and that I should watch it. I took her up on that and watched the entire 10-part series in about two weeks. I was not expecting to be affected on so many levels by this riveting program. I knew that this would be a program about MPD so I was not surprised at the big “reveal” that many of the main character’s friends, are in fact his “alters” (a term infrequently used now, but which refers to “parts” or “subpersonalities” or “ego states”). Seventeen-year-old Danny suffers from MPD and he leaves his mother and stepfather to live in an abandoned house. One of his parts is an Israeli tough guy Yitzak who protects him from dangers. Yitzak presents as no-nonsense and fierce in the face of bullies or anyone who would do Danny harm. There is also a sub-system within Danny that involves a friend group that includes Ariana, Jonny, and Mike. They reflect Danny’s ability to be social, fun-loving, carefree, fraternal, and sometimes reckless. Ariana is also confident and sexually active. And yet another part is Jack, a calculating British businessman.

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“Do I have multiple personality disorder?”

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As a therapist who practices parts work with clients, I often get the question, “Do I have multiple personality disorder?” I usually reply, “Almost certainly not. Multiple Personality Disorder is a very rare disorder.” Everyone has parts so we all have multiple personalities. When someone has MPD, however, it means that there is significant dissociation present, so much so that there is an amnesia wall between the person’s inmost self and their parts or between various parts.  Parts may “take the executive” or “blend with the self” to such an extent that the person has no memory of their own actions for lengthy periods of time. Other symptoms may include hearing voices, intrusive thoughts, impulse control issues, depersonalization, derealization, and emotional and behavioral dysregulation.

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Changing views of trauma’s effects on personality

The consensus among experts in dissociation used to be that MPD was caused by severe childhood trauma such as sexual abuse. Experts used to believe that at the time of the trauma the person’s personality was fragmented into many parts as a defensive mechanism. The treatment used to involve a kind of fusion therapy which attempted to reintegrate all the fragmented parts back into a single indivisible mind – just one personality.

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We now understand MPD differently. The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model asserts that we have all our parts from birth. When trauma occurs, parts may take on extreme roles and carry burdens which may include negative beliefs, overwhelming emotions, and painful memories. These wounded and burdened parts are called exiles in the IFS model.

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Interestingly, when Richard Schwartz developed IFS in the 1980’s, he was working from a family systems model rather than a trauma/dissociation model. He initially discovered parts when working with women struggling with eating disorders. He applied systems theory to the internal world of his clients and discovered the “Self” and multiple well-intentioned but often troubled parts.

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In the 1960’s and 1970’s John and Helen Watkins developed Ego State Therapy (EST). They worked primarily with highly dissociative clients and applied principles of psychosynthesis, psychoanalysis and clinical hypnosis to develop EST, a robust parts work therapy. Unlike Schwartz, the Watkins’ worked initially with people with severe dissociation such as MPD.  John Watkins famously used Ego State Therapy with the 1970’s California serial killer known as the Hillside Strangler to elicit a confession.  

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Back to the backstory…

Billy Milligan was on trial in the late 1970’s for committing multiple robberies and rapes in Ohio. He was originally diagnosed with schizophrenia by Dr. Willis Driscoll, but then diagnosed with MPD by Dr. Dorothy Turner. His case was highly publicized as the defense claimed that Billy did not commit the crimes; they were committed by two of his personalities. Instead of prison, Billy was sent to a psychiatric hospital. He was released in 1988 and died of cancer in 2014.

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The TV series, The Crowded Room, makes several creative changes to the actual history. The main character is named Danny Sullivan, not Billy, he lives in New York, not Ohio, and Danny’s alters (parts) have unique presentations. Instead of rape or robbery, Danny’s crime is shooting at a man in the very public space of Rockefeller Center. In Danny’s mind it was Ariana who shot the gun. We find out later that the man he was shooting at was in fact the stepfather who sexually abused him as a child.

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The progression of The Crowded Room

The first five or so episodes are from Danny’s perspective. We see the world as he sees it. He has memories of a twin brother Adam who died when they were young. We see the various parts as separate characters interacting with him and with other people in his life. We follow his teenage life which includes managing awkward social situations and dealing with his difficult stepfather. We watch as he leaves his mother and stepfather and moves into a nearby house managed by Yitzak, an Israeli landlord, and a female friend, Ariana. We watch as Danny escapes capture after the shooting and travels to England to find his biological father. Instead, he meets with his father’s former colleague British businessman Jack. Jack convinces Danny to confront people that owed his father money. This project does not go well, and Danny makes his way back to the United States and is captured by the authorities.

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We also follow the experiences of psychologist Rya Goodwin, played by Amanda Seyfried (of Mean Girls fame) who gradually figures out that Danny has MPD. She learns about his past trauma, empathizes with him, and neglects her own work at the university by working with and advocating for Danny. She collaborates with legal aid attorney Stan to prepare for Danny’s defense. As Rya learns about Danny’s childhood trauma, we see her empathize with and re-connect with her own young son. This is where the story takes a turn and gets very heavy.

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By the fifth episode, it becomes clear that many characters in the program are Danny’s alters or parts. We start to see how the parts protect him (sometimes in maladaptive ways) and how they often communicate with each other and work together keeping Danny out of the loop. The Jack part wants to keep the trauma out of the trial to protect him but this would surely sabotage Danny’s defense. All the parts are protecting Danny from the truth about his twin brother Adam.

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The big reveal

Major Spoiler Alert! If you intend to watch this, you may want to stop reading now and come back afterward.

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We learn (here is the big spoiler) that Adam is the part of Danny that carries the memory of the sexual abuse by the stepfather. This memory is repressed which results in Danny believing that his twin brother died when they were young.

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In a remarkable and powerful moment during the trial itself, we see Danny retrieve Adam, the exiled part, who is underwater (a fitting way to portray a repressed part lost in the unconscious mind). At this point in the program, tears are pouring down my face as it was so impactful. Danny rescues Adam who can reveal the truth about his abuse on the stand. The jury subsequently finds him not guilty.

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The program follows Danny’s recovery, his meeting with his mother who failed to protect him, and how he processes his abuse through art. I was speechless through the last few episodes. It was disturbing to be sure, but moving and ultimately hopeful. I am still reeling a bit from this experience. It is no surprise to me that actor Tom Holland who played Danny decided to take a year off acting after this role because he was so affected by the experience.

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I have never seen a more vivid depiction of parts of the self-system in action. This is far more realistic than earlier film versions depicting MPD such as Sally Field’s Sybil or Joanne Woodward’s The Three Faces of Eve. More recent Disney movies such as The Kid or Inside Out capture the idea of multiplicity in often humorous but insightful ways. The Crowded Room, however, speaks powerfully to the intersection of childhood trauma, multiplicity, and severe mental illness.

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