{"quotes":[{"text":"Once I had found the courage to tell Rebecca about the children in my head, it wasn't so hard in the coming months to tell Roberta. On the train from Huddersfield one day in May I made a roll call of the usual suspects: Baby Alice; Alice 2, who was two years old and liked to suck sticky lollipops; Billy; Samuel; Shirley; Kato; and the enigmatic Eliza. There was boy I would grow particularly fond of named limbo, who was ten, but like Eliza he was still forming. There were others without names or specific behaviour traits. I didn't want to confuse the issue with this crowd of 'others' and just counted off the major players with their names, ages and personalities, which Roberta scribbled down on a pad. Then she looked slightly embarrassed. 'You know, I've met Billy on a few occasions, and Samuel once too,' she said. 'You're joking.' I felt betrayed. 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'I wanted it to come from you, Alice, when you were ready.' For some reason I pulled up my sleeves and showed he my arms. 'That's Kato,' I said, 'or Shirley.' She looked a bit pale as she studied the scars. I had feeling she didn't know what to say. The problem with counsellors is that they are trained to listen, not to give advice or diagnosis. We sat there with my arms extended over the void between us like evidence in court, then I pushed down my sleeves again. 'I'm so sorry, Alice,' she said finally and I shrugged. 'It's not your fault, is it?' Now she shrugged, and we were quiet once more.","author":"Alice Jamieson","tags":["dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","mental-health","mental-illness","multiple-personality-disorder","psych","split-personality","therapy"],"id":1015,"author_id":"Alice+Jamieson"},{"text":"Isolation of catastrophic experiences. Dissociation may function to seal off overwhelming trauma into a compartmentalized area of conscious until the person is better able to integrate it into mainstream consciousness. The function of dissociation is particularly common in survivors of combat, political torture, or natural or transportation disasters.","author":"Marlene Steinberg","tags":["amnesia","catastrophe","combat","complex-trauma","concentration-camp-survivor","concentration-camps","consciousness","dissociated","dissociation","dissociative","memory","political-prisoners","psychology","soldiers","survivor","torture","trauma","trauma-survivors"],"id":2764,"author_id":"Marlene+Steinberg"},{"text":"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 interferes with men ever recognizing that pain is a normal indicator of a problem. And as the pain or discomfort increases, men are forced to choose between two problematic alternatives:If I admit I’m sick then I must do something about it. That may entail seeing a doctor which implies I’m weak, not in control of myself, not tough enough.However, if I don’t get help, I’ll get sicker and more vulnerable, really helpless.","author":"Mary Crocker Cook","tags":["dissociation","gender-role","gender-roles","men","patriarchy"],"id":5156,"author_id":"Mary+Crocker+Cook"},{"text":"In 2006, there is no army of recovered memory therapists, and Dr McNally’s assumptions about patients with PTSD and those working in this field are troubling. Owing to past debates, those working in the PTSD field are perhaps more knowledgeable than others about malingered, factitious, and iatrogenic variants.Why, then, does Dr McNally attack PTSD as a valid diagnosis, demean those working in the field, and suggest that sufferers are mostly malingered or iatrogenic, while giving little or no consideration is given to such variants of other psychiatric conditions? Perhaps the trauma field has been “so often embroiled in serious controversy” (4, p 816) for the same reason Dr McNally and others have trouble imagining the traumatization of a Vietnam War cook or clerk. One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients.'Cameron, C., \u0026 Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.","author":"Colin Cameron","tags":["denial","dissociation","iatrogenic","malingering","mental-health-stigma","mental-illness-discrimination","ptsd","recovered-memory-therapists","repression","society-denial","trauma-memory","trauma-survivors","traumatized"],"id":29843,"author_id":"Colin+Cameron"},{"text":"Secondary structural dissociation involves one ANP and more than one EP. Examples of secondary structural dissociation are complex PTSD, complex forms of acute stress disorder, complex dissociative amnesia, complex somatoform disorders, some forms of trauma-relayed personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS).. Secondary structural dissociation is characterized by divideness of two or more defensive subsystems. For example, there may be different EPs that are devoted to flight, fight or freeze, total submission, and so on. (Van der Hart et al., 2004). Gail, a patient of mine, does not have a personality disorder, but describes herself as a 'changed person.' She survived a horrific car accident that killed several others, and in which she was the driver. Someone not knowing her history might see her as a relatively normal, somewhat anxious and stiff person (ANP). It would not occur to this observer that only a year before, Gail had been a different person: fun-loving, spontaneous, flexible, and untroubled by frightening nightmares and constant anxiety. Fortunately, Gail has been willing to pay attention to her EPs; she has been able to put the process of integration in motion; and she has been able to heal. P134.","author":"Elizabeth F. Howell","tags":["apparently-normal-part","dissociation","emotional-part","personality","psychology","psychotherapy","ptsd","structural-dissociation","therapy","trauma"],"id":31029,"author_id":"Elizabeth+F.+Howell"},{"text":"I'm not one of these people who are disheartened that the universe is expanding. But as news and data breed and the crowded channels grow ever noisier, I do feel that the space is ever increasing between me and it, whatever it might be.","author":"Rivka Galchen","tags":["dissociation","social-media"],"id":40093,"author_id":"Rivka+Galchen"},{"text":"Mary was my first encounter with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which at that time was called multiple personality disorder. As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting and emergence of distinct identities experienced in DID represent only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life.","author":"Bessel A. van der Kolk","tags":["dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","mental-health","mental-life","multiple-personality-disorder"],"id":44044,"author_id":"Bessel+A.+van+der+Kolk"},{"text":"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 single person and generally must hold the whole person (I.E., system of alternate identities) responsible for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities, even in the presence of amnesia or the sense of lack of control or agency over behavior.From p8 International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision: Summary version. Journal of Trauma \u0026 Dissociation, 12, 188–212.","author":"James A. Chu","tags":["amnesia","dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","law","legal","responsibility","responsible-people","system-responsibility","treatment"],"id":68358,"author_id":"James+A.+Chu"},{"text":"Parts of you are phobic of anger and generally terrified and ashamed of angry dissociative parts. There is often tremendous conflict between anger-avoidant and anger-fixated parts of an individual. Thus, an internal and perpetual cycle of rage-shame-fear creates inner chaos and pain.","author":"Suzette Boon","tags":["angry","chaos","conflict","cycles","dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","fear","inner-conflict","phobia","rage","shame","trauma"],"id":69458,"author_id":"Suzette+Boon"},{"text":"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 of the self, people may experience difficulties with concentration, attention, other memory problems and general spaciness. These symptoms often accompany dissociation of the personality, but they are also common in people who do not have dissociative disorders. For example everyone can be spacey, absorbed in an activity, or miss an exit on the highway. When various parts of the personality are active, by definition, a person experiences some kind of abrupt change in attention and consciousness.","author":"Suzette Boon","tags":["amnesia","attention","complex-ptsd","day-dreaming","dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","memory","personality-types","ptsd","survivor","trauma"],"id":78734,"author_id":"Suzette+Boon"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":85,"pages":9,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}