MY EXPERIENCE

It is not my desire in this book to present a particular school of thought. What I have to offer is a distillation of my experience as a therapist, teacher and supervisor over the last twenty-five years. The conclusions I have come to are quite similar to those drawn by many transpersonal therapists and theorists. Their work has greatly enriched my perspective for which I am very grateful, but my only allegiance is to my own experience and this book is not intended to represent anything beyond that.

Most of the fundamental insights that have driven my work began twenty two years ago when I began working with my first MPD client. (Now called Dissociative Identity Disorder.) Since that initial client I have worked with approximately twelve other DID clients and forty or fifty clients who were diagnosed as DDNOS, or Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. These latter clients suffer from the same pattern of fragmentation, inner conflict, PTSD phenomenon and Borderline tendencies as the DID clients, but their symptoms don’t tend to be as severe and alter ego states rarely if ever take executive control of the body. Through the course of our work most of these clients have achieved integration.

These clients have taught me more about human and spiritual reality than all of my previous education both as a Catholic priest and as a therapist. The most fundamental lesson I have learned is that they are more like us than they are different. They and we share the same spectrum. At one end is profound fragmentation, rigidity, internal conflict and self-loathing, disconnection from the body and other people, a life driven by childhood defenses and scripts, as well as PTSD and fathomless emotional pain. At the other end of the spectrum stand those blessed few who have grown into an integrated, flexible, open, transparent, and differentiated but deeply connected Ego. They are motivated primarily by a felt sense of what would be the authentic expression of their own true nature rather than living in reaction to the dictates of external expectations or automatic responses arising out of cultural patterns and childhood pain. Very few stand at this end of the spectrum. The rest of us stand somewhere in between. We are somewhat fragmented, fairly rigid, often at odds with ourselves especially with those aspects we consider to be wrong or bad. Moreover, we are disconnected from our bodies, other people and nature, unconsciously driven by childhood scripts and in much more emotional pain than most of us care to admit, much less face.

In my experience and in much of the literature I have read, the successful integration and healing of a person suffering from DID or DDNOS is most likely to happen if the therapist accepts the following assumptions.

1. Ego and ego states are constructions of the psyche. They are ephemeral. They come and go, dissolve and reconstellate and yet, none the less feel very real.

2. The creation of an ego or egos is a natural spontaneous drive within the psyche triggered by our evolved capacity for self-awareness, self-identification, choice and control. The form the ego takes is not predetermined but an amalgam of social influences, defensive postures, biogenetic predispositions and imagination. This is as true for somebody with fourteen egos as it is for somebody with just one.

3. In most cases the degree of an ego’s rigidity, the expanse of its potential for choice, and the likelihood of its fragmentation are directly proportionate to how destructive and controlling the individual’s childhood experiences may have been.

4. In all fragmented individuals unresolved childhood trauma and distorted assumptions about self and others grounded in a sick family environment drive and shape almost all of the ego states that may emerge throughout life. The core of this poison is usually contained in one or more wounded child ego states. These child ego states must be worked with patiently and lovingly until the trauma and distorted beliefs are worked through. Without this integration and healing will not happen.

5. All of the other ego states represent many different levels of maturity and may embody any number of a variety of psychic potentials.

6. Healing demands a particular stance on the part of the principle or host ego (if there is one) and the therapist which includes the following:

a. Antagonism toward or strong attempts to control difficult parts by the host ego or the therapist will increase pathology and must, therefore, not be indulged.

b. Parts must be listened to carefully and encouraged to disclose themselves as completely as possible. As this unfolds mutual respect will increase, barriers will diminish and integration will eventually happen on a more or less spontaneous basis.

c. Every part has a right to exist and in one way or another is a gift to the system as a whole.

7. In most fragmented or dissociated clients I have found a well defined presence that acts as a source of unconditional love for all the parts and as a teacher and guide that strives to lead them to integration and healing if they are willing to follow. It is an invaluable resource to those therapists who are willing to take it seriously.

8. The internal world, or inner life of these individuals is a florid alternate reality replete with complex metaphoric domains and landscapes that must be explored since they are so integral to the structure and function of these individuals’ psyches.

9. Directly experiencing the metaphors that parts are embedded within achieves much more than could ever be accomplished by simple analytic thought or therapeutic dialog.

10. Parts, traumatic history, inner wisdom, and internal metaphoric realities are most fully encountered and effectively worked with when the client lets go of external focus, relaxes and then enters directly into internal reality through light trance and Active Imagination.

11. All of these preceding observations about DID and DDNOS clients is true of everyone to some degree. The methods and attitudes that have proven so helpful to these deeply wounded people are powerfully transformative for anyone willing to be open to them.