BLOG CARNIVAL: Recovery From Sexual Abuse

Come and participate in the Blog Carnival “Recovery from Sexual Abuse”!

• Do you have a blog and write about your recovery?
• Have you found great blogs that have helped you in your recovery?
  

Each month you can submit your own blog posts or someone else’s that you have found great for your recovery. You achieve 2 things by doing so:

1. You expose your blog to a larger readership and increase traffic to your site.
   
2. You help to establish a great ‘archive’ of valuable/helpful blog posts that will help
   those looking for information and support.
   

What is a Blog Carnival? It’s a site where you can submit your favourite blog posts about a certain topic. – At the end of each month I will collate these ‘best blogs’ and publish them.

Over time there will be an excellent archive of great articles that cover the recovery from sexual abuse! Go to the blog “Recovery From Sexual Abuse Blog Carnival” and check out the submissions so far. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

To submit you post, just CLICK ON THIS LINK  and follow the instructions. It’s easy and will take no time. You will be asked to copy the permalink in the submission field and the programme does most of the rest. You’ll find the permalink  usually at the end of a blog posts. Some blog platforms use the title of a post  as the permalink.

At the end of the month all submissions will be published on the Carnival Homepage Recovery From Sexual Abuse.

The dead-line for each month’s carnival is the last day of th
e month!

BLOG CARNIVAL: Recovery From Sexual Abuse

Come and participate in the Blog Carnival “Recovery from Sexual Abuse”!

• Do you have a blog and write about your recovery?
• Have you found great blogs that have helped you in your recovery?
  

Each month you can submit your own blog posts or someone else’s that you have found great for your recovery. You achieve 2 things by doing so:

1. You expose your blog to a larger readership and increase traffic to your site.
   
2. You help to establish a great ‘archive’ of valuable/helpful blog posts that will help
   those looking for information and support.
   

What is a Blog Carnival? It’s a site where you can submit your favourite blog posts about a certain topic. – At the end of each month I will collate these ‘best blogs’ and publish them.

Over time there will be an excellent archive of great articles that cover the recovery from sexual abuse! Go to the blog “Recovery From Sexual Abuse Blog Carnival” and check out the submissions so far. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

To submit you post, just CLICK ON THIS LINK  and follow the instructions. It’s easy and will take no time. You will be asked to copy the permalink in the submission field and the programme does most of the rest. You’ll find the permalink  usually at the end of a blog posts. Some blog platforms use the title of a post  as the permalink.

At the end of the month all submissions will be published on the Carnival Homepage Recovery From Sexual Abuse.

The dead-line for each month’s carnival is the last day of th
e month!

Living in multiple realities

Personality states  or parts that are observed in multiples seem to operate each with their own specific pattern of perceiving the world around them, relating to others, and thinking about the environment and the self. One might find a part that is shy, insecure, and hardly engages with other people, whereas another part might be bold, outgoing, and energetic. Although every person experiences times and circumstances when they seek seclusion and other times when they are outgoing, for multiple parts the state does not change. The shy part is shy all the time, the outgoing part is outgoing all the time, the angry part is angry all the time. Can you imagine how hard it is to be angry all the time?

Goal Setting 101

Goal setting is a very interesting exercise. Do not underestimate its usefulness. There is definitely a difference between 'knowing what you want' and going through a structured goal setting exercise. Wheather you make life changing goals like where to live, you aim for smaller goals like what to do next weekend, or you are interested in therapeutic goals like being more in control of your life, the process of goal setting is the same.

Why is goal setting important? It will give you a sense of direction. It will give focus to your actions.
By reflecting on your goals you will often become aware of the next steps u need to take to achieve them.

Losing Time

It is one thing to diagnose a person as suffering from DID. It’s a totally different thing to understand what the four criteria mean and how they manifest in a person’s life. Especially losing time and not remembering what happened for a part of the day, can be bewildering and disconcerting. I recall a DID client ringing me asking whether she had been attending her session that day and wanting to know when she left my office. She had heard in the news that a young women was murdered and she needed to make sure that she did not commit the murder. It took some convincing on my part for her to start calming down. She had been in my office at the time of the murder. The level of confusion and helplessness about losing time can be overwhelming at times.

…when he attacked me, that was too much … Well for me basically it caused me to have a total breakdown … till then I managed to hold it together, still with ups and downs. it was not like depression where you slide into a pit. It was just sliding down into a strange world with all sorts of voices and all sorts of things happening… (Sharon)

DSMIV Definition of DID

In the family of dissociative disorders the DSMIV (APA, 1994) lists five disorders (dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, depersonalisation disorder, and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified). All of them describe a dis-connection of usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment.

Dissociative identity disorder is the most severe form of this group. It is characterised by the presence of ‘two or more distinct identities or personality states (criterion A) that recurrently take control of behaiour (criterion B). There is an inability to recall important personal information, the extend of which is too great to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness (criterion D). The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance and a general medical condition (criterion D). In children, the symptoms cannot be attributed to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.

Therapists have range of opinions regarding sharing the diagnosis with their clients. Some are concerned about labelling or creating a crisis for clients. Clients I interviewed  for my research were all rellieved when their therapist had shared the diagnosis with them. It gave Rubi a sense of normality ‘I am normal in a DID sense’ and Carol gained a sense of direction ‘…the diagnosis is important …if you actually know what you’ve got, what you are dealing with, you know where to go with it. Or your therapist knows where she is going’. 

All you need is Love!

Book Review: “A General Theory of Love”, By T.Lewis, F.Amini, R.Lannon, (2001) Vintage Books, NY.

From the birth to death love is not just the focus of human experience but also the life force of the mind, determining our moods, stabilising our bodily rhythms, and changing the structure of our brains. The body’s physiology ensures that relationship determine and fix our identities. Love makes us who we are, and who we can become” (Lewis et all, 2001).

As a psychotherapist I am not surprised about the above statement, which is then fully explored and explained in the book. In my practice I have seen over the years many forms of human suffering originating in love being withheld, given in distorted and abusive ways, being painfully absent, or replaced by hate. Lewis and colleagues who combine research of the fields of neuroscience, biology, and psychology shed more light on the issue.

Connecting: The main focus in DID treatment and recovery

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but, if faced with courage, need not be lived again. (Quote by M. Angelou in Traumatic Stress, v.d.Kolk et. al, 1996).

Before I started my research project I had thought that a wider therapeutic approach that includes families and/or community would be an important treatment need for DID clients. Listening to the people that participated in my study I had to put a ‘tick’ behind that theory. People’s main concern was CONNECTING. In hindsight that seemed to be pretty obvious. People who have been disconnected from themselves, from others, and from the wider world felt they needed to re-establish the ties that had been broken through childhood abuse and neglect.

The main focus of DID clients in their therapy was to stop reliving their painful histories and re-enacting painful childhood dynamics. They affirmed powerfully the importance of the human need for CONNECTING to one-self, to people close to them, and to the wider community. The basic human need for CONNECTING continuously fueled treatment and the processes of recovery! It cannot be understood as a by-product of therapy but has to be the most important goal of therapy – and maybe even one’s life-journey itself.

 

 

Exercise: The magic bullet to combat depression?

Depression is a serious health concern world-wide. Not only can it be crippling in itself, often depression is accompanied by other serious mental health problems. Treatment for depression consists of drug treatment, counselling or psychotherapy, a combination of both drugs and counselling, or … you guessed it, EXERCISE! That exercise is effective in many cases has been indicated in a vast number of studies. It is pretty clear, depressed people, you have to put on your sneakers and off to the park for a jog. But wait … there is more … it's not that easy. Read on by clicking the link.

False memories created by therapists?

A therapy long used to dredge up painful and buried memories might itself traumatize patients and require more treatment to deal with the consequences, write psychology professors Scott O. Lilienfeld and Kelly Lambert in Scientific American Mind. Recovered-memory therapy has come under increasing fire over the past decade and is being used less and less.

The above Wall Street Journal blog has generated a heated discussion around therapists creating dissociative identity disorder (DID) and false memories in their clients. The comments made by readers (including Richard Kluft and other respected and well known therapists) are well worth exploring. They offer a rich source of arguments, research results, and other relevant facts. Use this link When The Psychiatric Cure is the Disease to read the original article and the comments – including mine.

It is clear, the debate whether DID is real or a construction of incompetent therapists is alive and kicking. We sure will hear more about this topic. What is your opinion? I would like to know – so, be brave and comment!