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 […]
mindset & thoughts
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 […]
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 […]
Inner Storytelling and Missing Information
Our brain is a storyteller. It continuously receives information about the world through our senses and puts them together to create a picture of the reality around us. These pictures are put together to create a story that we tell ourselves to make sense of the world and ourselves. These stories are personal. Our brain […]
Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts
Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that suddenly appear in our head and that we perceive as stressful and beyond our control. The content is often shameful or mean and there is a certain tone to them. Such thoughts can be very distressing, especially if they are never actually quiet. And thoughts are not as easy to […]
Separating inside and outside reality
One of the tricky problems with complex trauma is that our healthy separation between inside reality and outside reality is under-developed. We struggle with both sudden overwhelm from outside events and a tendency to take our inner experience as a literal reflection of outside reality. Separating ourselves from outside events You might know […]
Learning how to Reflect about Reality
In our quest to make sense of ourselves and the world we will spend quite some time reflecting about experiences. We already shared how to reflect on inner experiences. Now we will look at how to make sense of the world around us. Constructivism We all know only fragments of all the things there […]
Learning how to Reflect about the Inner Experience
Those of you who have read books on DID treatment have seen the phrase ‘the phobia of the inner experience’ and noticed that the reflection about this experience is a basic skill for all inner work. But scientists always forget to explain what the Inner Experience is supposed to be. How would we know? Nobody […]
The circles of suffering
The circles of suffering are an ACT exercise that can help us to realize the costs of avoidance of difficult topics in our life. We start with the main issue we avoid and then analyze the suffering that happens on top of it. That way we might get convinced that overcoming the avoidance and tackling […]
Dealing with mistakes and failure (perfectionism)
Growing up in a trauma family often means learning that mistakes are not tolerated. Caregivers might have expected us to do things right every time, even if it is the first time we try. We found our own strategies to cope with this toxic atmosphere by hiding ourselves and our mistakes or by trying […]
Hierarchies and Cooperation
Most people with DID experience some kind of hierarchy among the different parts. There are those who tell everyone what to do, call them controlling EPs, managers, gatekeepers, abuser-imitating parts, protectors or diplomatically, ‘advisors’. Their job is to keep everyone functioning and in line to avoid failure, punishment or pain. Then there are those […]