The next step would be to try to figure out what it would actually mean, in terms of concrete experience, to actually shake that habit, and to start thinking about myself and others as multiple when it is useful to do so.

You might find you already do so quite naturally with phrases like "he wasn't himself" or saying "part of me wants to do X, but part of me wants to do Y" or "my conscience is forcing me to do this" or something like that. People say these things all the time.

However, I don't think there's a need to completely shake the habit and worry about using that language because thinking of people, especially people you don't know well (and therefore don't know about their inner conflicts and thought processes), as unitary is often much more useful. I think the view of the unitary self isn't a necessary illusion but a necessary perspective. It's one way of looking at things, usually the most practical way (because ultimately, your "plural" selves are stuck in the same body and brain and this limits just how much they can be looked at as different entities). I think the important thing is to remember it's not the only way. Whenever you decide a thing, animate or inanimate, is "unitary" or "plural" you're making a value judgment and choosing a point of view. For instance, a leaf can be looked at as a singular object, or as a part of a tree, or as an arrangement of molecules--depending on what question you're interested in investigating about that leaf.

-- AnjaliBhat - 04 Feb 2009