Engaging Multiple Personalities

The general public is bewildered and fascinated by Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder. Through books, television and movies, a distorted view of DID is often presented. While it may make for good entertainment, it fails to truly present the depth and intensity of the inherent trauma. Outside the ordinary day-to-day life experience of most people, it is hard to understand. Ignoring past trauma simply will not help a patient. In his psychiatric practice, the author encountered a number of his patients' alters face-to-face. He found that the most effective course of therapy was to engage them directly. Talking to alters is a strange, serious and ultimately compelling experience. They are not real according to our customary definitions, but neither are they false or fake. They are survivors of childhood abuse, present in shared flesh and blood. The author discusses the phenomenon of DID through case histories, and how it manifests clinically. Most important, he elucidates techniques necessary to help these traumatized patients heal. DID patients can successfully engage in and profit from therapy. By processing the impact of their past traumatic memory, they may reclaim their present.

This is the 3rd Volume of the Engaging Multiple Personalities Series by David Yeung. This Volume is written directly to and for the DID/MPD community and its support network. It is practical advice for Living in Multiplicity. It addresses issues for people who are still looking for a therapist with experience treating DID, to begin to build a foundation for healing right now.

This Volume 2 continues the discussions begun in Volume 1 concerning Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder. This Volume focuses on giving patients, support networks and therapists the foundation to heal and support healing of those with DID. Those who wish to learn about treating DID from a clinician's perspective will find guidance in both Volumes. The key point of understanding that ignoring past trauma simply will not help a patient. In his psychiatric practice, the author encountered a number of his patients' alters face-to-face. He found that the most effective course of therapy was to engage them directly. Talking to alters is a strange, serious and ultimately compelling experience. They are survivors of childhood abuse, present in shared flesh and blood. They are essential for healing the patient. In Volume 2, The author goes into detailed guidance for working with DID as well as highlighting pitfalls to avoid. Most important, he elucidates practical and easily accessible techniques necessary to help these traumatized patients heal. DID patients can successfully engage in and profit from therapy. By processing the impact of their past traumatic memory, they may reclaim their present.

Since the time of Mesmer, in the late eighteenth century, spectacular feats of hypnosis have been documented by respected scientific researchers, yet hypnosis has remained divorced from the main body of science. In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Eugene Bliss shows that the hypnotic capability of the mind is important to the theory and practice of psychiatry, and suggests that it deserves much more attention and research. In Multiple Personality, Allied Disorders and Hypnosis, Bliss explores both the nature of multiple personality and hypnosis, and discusses how an understanding of the latter can provide insight into the nature of certain psychiatric disorders. For instance, he views multiple personality as a form of self-hypnosis, an instance of learned schizophrenia rather than an organic disorder, as is generally thought. He outlines the trace elements involved in multiple personality and other psychiatric disorders, provides a fascinating history of the origins and current ideas about hypnosis, and gives a detailed account of the use of hypnosis in the treatment of multiple personality. Based on thirty years of clinical experience, and filled with insightful personal observations, Multiple Personality, Allied Disorders and Hypnosis is an informative, fascinating book for psychiatrists, psychologists, and anyone intrigued by hypnosis and its possible beneficial use.

Many people have secrets they are fearful to share with those who love them. Christine Pattillo was one of those people, except instead of just one secret, she had many. As long as Christine can remember, she has lived with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). But for most of her life, she kept this secret hidden from everyone around her, including her husband. It wasnOCOt until the age of forty-one and after ten years of counseling that she finally managed to utter the seven most difficult words of her life: There is more than one of me. Now, several years later, she is ready to share her story with the rest of the world. In her fascinating memoir, I Am WE: Our Lives with Multiple Personalities, Christine Pattillo shares her incredible journey of life with MPD. Readers will come to know ChristineOCOs alternate personalities as the unique and extraordinary individuals they are. a"

These are the collected blog posts from engagingmultiples.com on topics and questions from those in the DID community following publication of the Engaging Multiple Personalities Volume 1, 2 and 3

Journalist Debbie Nathan reveals the true story behind the famous case of Sybil, the woman with sixteen different personalities.

Marital and parental responsibilities can be enough of a challenge for two working adults. Add in one spouse who has intensifying bouts of amnesia and you have a recipe for disaster. But disaster is not an option for Annora. She grew up in an orphanage and so the preservation of her precious family was her number one commitment. But that commitment was threatened when, during marital counseling, Annoras therapist began to recognize even more unusual and abnormal behaviors in her. Annora was subsequently diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as Multiple Personality Disorder. But that wouldnt stop Annora from declaring her sanity to her husband and begging him to fi nd them a new therapist. We Are Annora is a story about the human will to survive amidst the darkness which lies deep within despondency and a powerful mental disorder. Marrows choice of first-person narrative successfully pulls the reader into this page-turning true story which so richly demonstrates the human will to survive amidst a crippling disorder that is still so misunderstood. Throughout the pages of this book, struggles of fear and hope, love and hate, confusion and utter clarity give the reader an insider perspective of the challenges faced by traumatized people with DID. Hence, the reader acquires a better understanding of the difficulties suffered by multiples and the potential for true healing.

Why do we find multiple personality disorder (MPD) so fascinating? Perhaps because each of us is aware of a dividedness within ourselves: we often feel as if we are one person on the job, another with our families, another with our friends and lovers. We may fantasize that these inner discrepancies will someday break free, that within us lie other personalities - genius, lover, criminal - that will take us over and render us strangers to our very selves. What happens when such a transformation literally occurs, when an alter personality surfaces and commits some heinous deed?

The groundbreaking first-person account of successful recovery from dissociative identity disorder, now featuring a new preface by the author When Joan Frances Casey, a married twenty-six-year-old graduate student, “awoke” on the ledge of a building ready to jump, it wasn’t the first time she couldn’t explain her whereabouts. Soon after, Lynn Wilson, an experienced psychiatric social worker, diagnosed Joan with multiple personality disorder. She prescribed a radical program of reparenting therapy to individually treat her patient’s twenty-four separate personalities. As Lynn came to know Joan’s distinct selves—Josie, the self-destructive toddler; Rusty, the motherless boy; Renee, the people pleaser—she uncovered a pattern of emotional and physical abuse that had nearly consumed a remarkable young woman. Praise for The Flock “A testimony to [Casey’s] courage and the dedication of her therapist, who believed that a profoundly fragmented self has the capacity to heal within a loving therapeutic relationship.”—The New York Times Book Review “Absolutely mesmerizing . . . the first coherent autobiographical study of its kind.”—The Detroit News “A compelling psychological odyssey offering unique insights into a nightmare world.”—Kirkus Reviews “Extraordinary . . . deftly told and studded with striking images.”—Publishers Weekly