Robert Oxnam, China scholar who discovered he had 11 personalities, dies at 81
Robert B. Oxnam, China scholar and Greenport resident, was president of the Asia Society. Credit: Asia Society /Helaine Messer
Eminent China scholar Robert Oxnam briefed powerhouses like Bill Gates and former President George H.W. Bush, before attracting wider curiosity when his memoir revealed he had 11 personalities.
He unpacked China for news audiences since its opening to the West in the ’70s and boosted international ties as president of the Manhattan-based Asia Society, which transformed from a culture-focused nonprofit into a global resource under his leadership.
Yet it was his state of mind and artwork that hooked bigger audiences, from “Oprah” to the BBC. Under therapy at age 47, Oxnam discovered he had been abused as a child and sprouted various identities. In his 2005 autobiography, “A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder,” he detailed his bulimia, self-hate and bouts of “furious frenzy” breaking objects. He found a sort of healing as a later-in-life artist, polishing and painting weathered wood from North Fork beaches to release their “inner dynamism.”
“Whatever he did, he did at the highest level,” said his wife, Vishaka Desai, a past president of the Asia Society. “He was a multidimensional guy with an amazingly golden heart … There’s not too many people I know who can talk to the Dalai Lama and talk to the [building security] guard with the same level of respect.”
Oxnam, of Greenport, died on April 18 of complications from Alzheimer’s at age 81. His life also was marked by mobilizing Vietnam War protests as a college student and bicycling the Tour de France’s hairpin bends at age 70.
His fascination with China blossomed while getting his master’s and doctoral degrees at Yale University, after speaking to Mary and Arthur Wright, premier China historians there. He researched the 17th century Oboi Regency era, reading period documents in Chinese, joking that no one on the planet knew about those obscure eight years better than him, his wife said.
Oxnam taught for six years at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, but left in 1975 to set up China councils across the nation for the Asia Society. This came at a time when complicated ties between the two countries were forming after President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.
He poked fun at himself over his frequent advice on understanding China. “In a staff party skit I was caricatured as saying: ‘You want to know about why Deng Xiaoping is modernizing China so quickly?’ ’’ he recalled in a 2014 article for the American Historical Association. “We’ll begin with the Shang dynasty three thousand years ago.”
Burned out, Oxnam left the nonprofit in 1992, writing in his memoir that the job was more about management than about culture and current affairs. He appeared in major news outlets as a China expert, including as correspondent and narrator in a 1993-1994 series on modern China for PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” Around the same time, his wife said, Oxnam helped guide business and government leaders on tours of China, such as one vacation with billionaire Warren Buffett and Gates, who at that time was rolling out his Windows software to China.
But a secret reason for his departure was his life as Robert and 10 other personalities, revealed when he sought help for what he believed was burnout and alcoholism.
In a March 1990 therapy session, psychiatrist Jeffrey Smith told him he had been talking to an angry boy named Tommy for about 50 minutes, bewildering Oxnam, who believed he had just arrived and finished saying, “I hate my life.”
Oxnam had kept his professional image together as “Bob” dominated the 10 other identities from the 1960s to early 1990s, according to the memoir. That was the “outer world,” while 11 identities conversed and squabbled in the “inner world.” The 11 eventually agreed to be “integrated” into three, Robert, Bobby and Wanda, Oxnam said.
In writing to take the stigma out of what is now called dissociative identity disorder, Oxnam concluded many people likely have several personalities, which become a disorder only if there are “rigid memory walls” between them: “Everyone I know reports feeling differently and acting differently in different places and with different people.”
In his last 20 years, he was an artist with photos and woodwork that sold for thousands of dollars at art shows.
In his American Historical Association article, he wrote about a craggy wood art piece he named Gremlin. “Finding this wooden piece buried and waterlogged on a rocky Long Island beach was akin to the joys of the best historical research — uncovering an overlooked detail that turned out to be a gem in the rough.”
Besides his wife, Oxnam is survived by a son and daughter from a previous marriage, Geoff Oxnam of Easton, Maryland, and Deborah Betsch, of Fort Worth, Texas. He was cremated on April 22.
Eminent China scholar Robert Oxnam briefed powerhouses like Bill Gates and former President George H.W. Bush, before attracting wider curiosity when his memoir revealed he had 11 personalities.
He unpacked China for news audiences since its opening to the West in the ’70s and boosted international ties as president of the Manhattan-based Asia Society, which transformed from a culture-focused nonprofit into a global resource under his leadership.
Yet it was his state of mind and artwork that hooked bigger audiences, from “Oprah” to the BBC. Under therapy at age 47, Oxnam discovered he had been abused as a child and sprouted various identities. In his 2005 autobiography, “A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder,” he detailed his bulimia, self-hate and bouts of “furious frenzy” breaking objects. He found a sort of healing as a later-in-life artist, polishing and painting weathered wood from North Fork beaches to release their “inner dynamism.”
“Whatever he did, he did at the highest level,” said his wife, Vishaka Desai, a past president of the Asia Society. “He was a multidimensional guy with an amazingly golden heart … There’s not too many people I know who can talk to the Dalai Lama and talk to the [building security] guard with the same level of respect.”
Oxnam, of Greenport, died on April 18 of complications from Alzheimer’s at age 81. His life also was marked by mobilizing Vietnam War protests as a college student and bicycling the Tour de France’s hairpin bends at age 70.
His fascination with China blossomed while getting his master’s and doctoral degrees at Yale University, after speaking to Mary and Arthur Wright, premier China historians there. He researched the 17th century Oboi Regency era, reading period documents in Chinese, joking that no one on the planet knew about those obscure eight years better than him, his wife said.
Oxnam taught for six years at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, but left in 1975 to set up China councils across the nation for the Asia Society. This came at a time when complicated ties between the two countries were forming after President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.
He poked fun at himself over his frequent advice on understanding China. “In a staff party skit I was caricatured as saying: ‘You want to know about why Deng Xiaoping is modernizing China so quickly?’ ’’ he recalled in a 2014 article for the American Historical Association. “We’ll begin with the Shang dynasty three thousand years ago.”
Hidden identities emerge
Burned out, Oxnam left the nonprofit in 1992, writing in his memoir that the job was more about management than about culture and current affairs. He appeared in major news outlets as a China expert, including as correspondent and narrator in a 1993-1994 series on modern China for PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” Around the same time, his wife said, Oxnam helped guide business and government leaders on tours of China, such as one vacation with billionaire Warren Buffett and Gates, who at that time was rolling out his Windows software to China.
But a secret reason for his departure was his life as Robert and 10 other personalities, revealed when he sought help for what he believed was burnout and alcoholism.
In a March 1990 therapy session, psychiatrist Jeffrey Smith told him he had been talking to an angry boy named Tommy for about 50 minutes, bewildering Oxnam, who believed he had just arrived and finished saying, “I hate my life.”
Oxnam had kept his professional image together as “Bob” dominated the 10 other identities from the 1960s to early 1990s, according to the memoir. That was the “outer world,” while 11 identities conversed and squabbled in the “inner world.” The 11 eventually agreed to be “integrated” into three, Robert, Bobby and Wanda, Oxnam said.
In writing to take the stigma out of what is now called dissociative identity disorder, Oxnam concluded many people likely have several personalities, which become a disorder only if there are “rigid memory walls” between them: “Everyone I know reports feeling differently and acting differently in different places and with different people.”
In his last 20 years, he was an artist with photos and woodwork that sold for thousands of dollars at art shows.
In his American Historical Association article, he wrote about a craggy wood art piece he named Gremlin. “Finding this wooden piece buried and waterlogged on a rocky Long Island beach was akin to the joys of the best historical research — uncovering an overlooked detail that turned out to be a gem in the rough.”
Besides his wife, Oxnam is survived by a son and daughter from a previous marriage, Geoff Oxnam of Easton, Maryland, and Deborah Betsch, of Fort Worth, Texas. He was cremated on April 22.
