I was increasingly both horrified and sceptical about these memories – I had no recall of these things at all, though I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to make it all up either. It felt...

Those who are aware of their condition and experience themselves as “multiple” might refer to themselves as “we” rather than “I.” I shall use the term “multiple” at times, in respect for their internal experience....

Treatment for DID should adhere to the basic principles of psychotherapy and psychiatric medical management, and therapists should use specialized techniques only as needed to address specific dissociative symptomatology.Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in...

Identity confusion is defined by the SCID-D as a subjective feeling of uncertainty, puzzlement, or conflict about one’s own identity. Patients who report histories of childhood trauma characteristically describe themes of ongoing inner struggle regarding...

Dissociation is the ultimate form of human response to chronic developmental stress, because patients with dissociative disorders report the highest frequency of childhood abuse and/or neglect among all psychiatric disorders. The cardinal feature of dissociation...

If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt less prone to...

The process of dissociation is an elegant mechanism built into the human psychological system as a form of escape from (sometimes literally) going crazy. The problem with checking out so thoroughly is that it can...

Both incest and the Holocaust have been subject to furious denial by perpetrators and other individuals and by highly organised groups such as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and the Committee for Historical Review. Incest...

Specific parts of you personality may be angry and are usually easily evoked. because these parts are dissociated, anger remains an emotion that is not integrated for you as a whole person. Even though individuals...

The odd sensation I had while cooking would often last through the meal, then dissolve as I climbed the stairs. I would enter my room and discover the homework books I had left on the...

The government researchers,aware of the information in the professional journals, decided to reverse the process (of healing from hysteric dissociation). They decided to use selective trauma on healthy children to create personalities capable of committing...

Secret ceremonies in which malevolent men and women cloaked in hooded robes, hiding behind painted faces and chanting demonic incantations while inflicting sadistic wounds on innocent children lying on makeshift alters, or tied to inverted...

I am truly crazy, I told myself. It’s over. I am not fixable. I cannot tell Tom. I cannot even tell Francisco. So I won’t tell anyone. My brain seemed out of control. Tom does...

it felt increasingly, as I became more whole, that I had made it all up, and that I was a phoney. I had to come to some place of acceptance. If I made it all...

The “apparently normal personality” – the alter you view as “the client”You should not assume that the adult who function in the world, or who presents to you, week after week, is the “real” person,...

real” or more important than any other.Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision

As Lynn began getting psychologically better, she took me to a variety of sites. She taught me how to read trail markers. In the end, Lynn’s stories could not be denied. She was not only...

When sleep came, I would dream bad dreams. Not the baby and the big man with a cigarette-lighter dream. Another dream. The castle dream. A little girl of about six who looks -like me, but...

numbs out.” It denies and distorts our Child Within, and is often judgmental.

This dissociation from the body extends to emotional disengagement. Without access to his feelings a man can’t help but lose track of who he is, what his priorities are and what is normal for him.

Some dissociative parts of the personality, living in trauma time, may experience the same emotion no matter the situation, such as fear, rage, shame, sadness, yearning and even some positive ones just as joy.* Other...

I became skilled at covering my tracks, filling in the blanks. Sometimes the blanks were never filled. At other times, I would recall places where I had been or things I had done as if...

Cheryl was aided in her search by the Internet. Each time she remembered a name that seemed to be important in her life, she tried to look up that person on the World Wide Web....

Loftus grew up with a cold father who taught her nothing about love but everything about angles. A mathematician, he showed her the beauty of the triangle’s strong tip, the circumference of the circle, the...

Amnesia, which is a loss of memory, is a symptom of many different trauma and/or dissociative disorders, including PTSD, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Amnesia can affect both implicit...

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling...

Mind control is built in lies and manipulation of attachment needs.Valerie Sinason, from the Forward of the book

The DID patient should be seen as a whole adult person with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life. Despite patients’ subjective experience of separateness, clinicians must keep in mind that the patient is a...

Other personalities are created to handle new traumas, their existence usually occurring one at a time. Each has a singular purpose and is totally focused on that task. The important aspect of the mind’s extreme...

Why did I allow the abuse to continue? Even as a teenager?I didn’t. Something that had been plaguing me for years now made sense. It was like the answer to a terrible secret. The thing...

Pathological dissociation is characterized by profound, functional amnesias and significant alterations in identity; normal dissociation is expressed primarily in the form of intense absorption with internal stimuli (e.g., daydreams) or external stimuli (e.g., a fascinating...

Dissociation from the body and emotions – numbness – is a basic requirement of the male ideal. Hardy and Hough point out that the patriarchal culture’s influence is so strong on this point that it...

People with Complex PTSD suffer from more severe and frequent dissociation symptoms, as well as memory and attention problems, than those with simple PTSD. In addition to amnesia due to the activity of various parts...

The word is dissociate. There is no ‘a’ before the invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you’re suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have...

Working simultaneously, though seemingly without a conscience, was Dr. Ewen Cameron, whose base was a laboratory in Canada’s McGill University, in Montreal. Since his death in 1967, the history of his work for both himself...

But then, not long after, in another article, Loftus writes, “We live in a strange and precarious time that resembles at its heart the hysteria and superstitious fervor of the witch trials.” She took rifle...

As Mollie said to Dailey in the 1890s: “I am told that there are five other Mollie Fanchers, who together, make the whole of the one Mollie Fancher, known to the world; who they are...

It was soon after that I, overwhelmed with the implications of that memory, overdosed – well, somebody did but as it was my mouth and my stomach that was involved I had to take the...

Since the 1980s, therapists have reported encountering clients or patients who had experienced extreme abuses featuring physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, and cognitive aspects, along with a premeditated structure of torture-enforced lessons. The phenomena was first...

Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic...

The men and women who continue to hold Lynn’s mind hostage against her will believe the future will be tilled with terrorism, death, destruction and a challenge to the survival of America. They believe Lynn...

It is hard to bring paedophile rings to justice. Thankfully it does happen. Perhaps the most horrific recent case came before the High Court in Edinburgh in June 2007. It involved a mother who stood...

Member of medical oversight board for Science Applications International Corp. remote-viewing research in early 1990s.

Without realizing it, I fought to keep my two worlds separated. Without ever knowing why, I made sure, whenever possible that nothing passed between the compartmentalization I had created between the day child and the...

Most dissociative parts influence your experience from the inside rather than exert complete control, that is, through passive influence.*In fact, many parts never take complete control of a person, but are only experienced internally. *Frequent...

PART 2 I felt doomed to death,But in a flash, Before I could reduce my thoughts To an emotion, I felt a mass leave my body:Departing. Then my mind becomes anonymous As is each night....

There were other strange signals and signs. Another day, suddenly felt an almost overwhelming urge to travel to Balitmore. I wanted to ‘kidnap’ a helicoper fly it there if I didn’t drive the there’, she...

This book is a memoir – not of specific life events, but of the processes of dissociation, and of re-enlivening emotions that are shameful to admit or even to feel. It is an account of...

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimesit looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar...