Category Archives: Diagnosis
I Can’t Trust My Memories
Upon the Sharon Armstrong post from a wee while ago where I talked about NLP and eye accessing cues that can indicate whether a person is remembering or is constructing a memory, I received an email from a reader asking whether there would be a way for her to know whether she is making up what …
Thoughts about DID, Diagnosis, and Parts
You might have noticed that I started telling the story of Anna, a person with multiple parts to her personality. If you want to know how Anna’s parts came to exist, and why, you will find many books, websites, and articles that talk about DID and alternate parts. I am getting a bit tired of all these clever explanations like the one in Wikipedia: “a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.
It’s A Shame!
I found this quote today: It’s a difficult thing to be out about. Homosexuality is okay. Depression and ADHD are fairly well mainstream. Multiple is a big stigma. Especially, when, like me, one has not been “diagnosed” by a “medical professional”. I feel like I’m … less than real.Learning to Say Yes, Feb 2009 It …
Making A Link Between Sexual Abuse And Mental Health Problems
A big obstacle to recovery is that often survivors of sexual abuse do not know that the problems they have are related to past experiences of sexual abuse. In fact, in my research 60% of the participants did not link their mental health problems to their history of sexual abuse. They were completely unaware of …
Diagnosis and Identity
Making a connection with the therapist and equally so being diagnosed with DID have a huge impact on peoples understanding of who they are. Identity is the label of a group or social category that a person gives herself (Charon, 1998), for example ‘I am a woman’ or even ‘I am a multiple’. As such …
Diagnosis and Hope
DID clients were under the impression, that once the diagnosis was made, their therapist would know how to help them more effectively. It provided them with a sense of possible progress and instilled hope. "The diagnosis is important… But I think, if you actually know what you've got, what you are dealing with, you know …
Diagnosis as an Obstacle
Receiving a diagnosis of having a dissociative identity disorder (DID) is not always a relief for clients. One woman in my research felt that once she was diagnosed with DID that therapists' focus was predominantly on the DID symptoms than on her as a person. It was his ability to connect with me on some …
Connecting Through Diagnosis
Making a connection with a therapist had to be followed by making a connection through being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). It signaled for the DID clients I interviewed a break through in this first stage of their therapy that I have called 'Connecting'. We finally seem to have got something so that I …
DID Diagnosis as a stigma
DID clients are under the impression that this lack of knowledge and understanding is a breeding place for being stigmatised. DID clients who work in the helping professions have been reluctant to disclose their diagnosis at their workplace. They felt a professional with a psychiatric diagnosis would not be accepted. DID clients are generally careful …
Disbelieving the Diagnosis
A lack of understanding DID and the needs of DID clients among mental health workers in a community mental health setting created stress for the treating therapist and the client. The colleagues and superiors did not believe in the diagnosis of DID and therefore put pressure on the treating therapist to stop with the client. …
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