Sometimes parts are 100% certain of something and they are wrong. They are stuck in memories of a past that is not happening anymore or they stick to old rules that don’t apply anymore. Their undeniably real experiences formed convictions in them that persist even though life has changed. Sometimes re-experiencing creates a loop […]
DID
Holders, Storytellers and Agents in DID
Over the years, I have come across a number of different ways to see and understand parts. None of these are absolute truths. They just offer a framework that makes it easier to understand a certain aspect of parts and it helps with overcoming challenges. Depending on the situation, one framework might be more useful […]
Specific beliefs in parts: everything will fall apart
While typical cognitive errors might play a role in DID treatment, there are other mistakes in our reasoning, and problematic beliefs that are at the core of our trouble. In this small series we are exploring specific beliefs in parts and how to work with them. Falling apart This belief is most often found […]
Specific beliefs in parts: The need for punishment
Every CBT-heavy book on DID will list cognitive errors (e.g. black&white thinking, generalizations, catastrophic thinking etc) when it comes to problematic thoughts and beliefs in DID. I don’t think that these cognitive errors are much more common in DID than they are in other mental health issues. But there are specific beliefs that are […]
Psychological Safety in a DID System
Psychological safety is a term that we will borrow from organizational psychology to look at inner dynamics within a DID system. Psychological safety is described as a shared culture within a group that makes it safe to speak up, express needs, ideas or doubt, take risks, make mistakes, and learn from failure. Tools that are […]
Recovering from bad therapy
With DID, it is not rare at all to experience bad therapy. There are a multitude of reasons why therapists fail us and not being properly trained is just the most common one. Returning to the tasks of therapy with someone else will be exponentially more difficult after we got hurt. When we first started […]
The Discovery of Free Will
There is a small exercise that I have been doing for many years now. It offers a true and free choice within a safe setting. These choices are different from double binds that we might have experienced as we grew up. They are choices between positive or neutral things and whatever a part chooses they […]
Allowing each other to change
In DID therapy, we want parts to change. We want them to be more oriented, to gain new knowledge about the world today and we want them to learn how to live and act in this new world. Old behaviors that belong to TraumaTime are not useful anymore and get in the way of […]
Phobic Avoidance and Integrative Capacity
Professional literature about DID lists a number of ‘phobias’ that classically appear in DID therapy and that patients have to overcome. The phobias that are usually listed are the phobia of attachment and attachment loss (both, but showing in opposite parts) thought/feelings/memories/wishes associated with trauma other dissociative parts traumatic memory change and healthy risk-taking […]
Resolving complex situations with DID parts
Sometimes we run into problems that are more complex than a flashback. It needs more than simple Grounding or separating past from present. Several parts are activated at the same time and they are influencing each other in a way that maintains the problem. We have to actively intervene. I will explain 3 different versions […]
Relational vs Integrative Approaches for inner Work
[CN: this post is very much pro Integrated Functioning and can cause difficult emotions in people who insist in seeing DID as ‘many people in one body’] There are 2 main ways to approach inner work with dissociative parts. One is based on building relationships between parts, the other is based on resolving the […]
The Other Face of DID: Are we forgetting something?
The more recent literature that explains therapy approaches for DID seems to focus on impulsive behavior, visible stress responses and maladaptive coping like self-harm and drug use. It describes how demanding these patients are, how chaotic, and the kind of extreme boundaries it needs for therapists to protect themselves. I feel a growing unrest about […]
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