​How do personality parts or alters express themselves? Prior to 1994, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was known as Multiple Personality Disorder. The psychiatric establishment then concluded that each person can only possess one personality and it cannot be split. What is separated or dissociated is the memory system of the individual, and not his personality. 

Given the fact that the average age for the onset of sexual abuse is between 6.5 and 7.5 years old, it would not be unusual to discover that the first personality parts created are child alters. However, they may not be the earliest ones to surface during treatment. In most cases, these fearful child parts are hidden deep within the subconscious of the individual and may be the last few to appear. The most aggressive or emotionally unstable alters are commonly the first to come forward. On occasions, a principal alter, who appears to know a great deal about the presence of all or most of the parts, may appear. Then it would be prudent to establish a trustful relationship with it, in order to verify the names of the various alters, and their relationship with each other, and the parts’ genesis. 

While the client was in a trance state, with her eyes closed, the first part to appear was the principal alter. She was confident and calm, and spoke  with an authoritative air. She seemed to be aware of the client’s present predicament and talked about several personality parts in her. However, she was unable to name the other alters , but she hears them talking among themselves, in the client’s head. One of the distinctives of DID is that the actual person do hear, at times, different parts holding a conference together. Once a decision had been reached among them, a particular alter would be responsible for executing the agreed decision. 

In another client, a suicidal part popped out in the first counselling session. He had been sodomised as a young teenager by an older guy, and was so traumatised by it that whenever he was crossing a road, the suicidal part would try to talk him into stepping out in front of the criss-crossing traffic. 

A young pre-teen alter was the first to come out. She was sexually abused by her older brother. She would rough out her hair as though they were too long for her age, and spoke with a child-like squeaky voice, even though she was a 40 year-old married lady.

In my initial case, the married woman had personality parts named after her husband, her two sons, adoptive family members, ​several of her aunties and uncles, her husband’s friends, father-in-law and mother-in-law, and her father-in-law’s employees and maids, and neighbours. These alters were created during traumatic incidents throughout her life, involving both perpetrators and innocent bystanders, who were present, from 4 years of age into her late 60s. They held traumatic memories that included witnessing a suicide, others’ adulterous relationships, rapes, physical and mental tortures, physical abandonment and emotional deprivations. 

​As dissociative parts are fragmented memories, disagreements among themselves are common. So, one part will not talk to another even though they are aware of each other. Particularly when it involves some of the disturbing memories mentioned above. It is as though the parts see one another as different ‘persons.’ Irreconcilable differences may initially be as difficult as in real life, but there are ways to bring them around to accept each other’s opposing views on various issues, in line with how our mind normally functions with multifarious opinions. 

The religious establishment, unfortunately, possesses a fixated view that a dissociative person is invariably demonised. And without further exhaustive investigation as to the causes and processes of such a predicament, embark immediately on a course of exorcism. Clients who presented themselves following such an expulsion ritual usually suffer irreparable harm to their self-image, being stigmatised by others as somewhat tainted by Satanic influence. Unlike demons, a fragmented memory cannot be expelled. A personality part forms part of the individual’s memory system, and it is not a separate person with a distinct personhood or a separate ‘spirit.’ Exorcism, therefore, is a misguided treatment for a non-demonised Dissociative Identity Disordered (DID) person. Having concluded that, it stands to reason that there is always a distinct possibility that a dissociated person may be possessed. However, in my previous practice, none of the DID patients, in treatment, were demonised. In reality, exorcism, practised wisely with spiritual discernment, is a valid ritual within the Christian church, used to confront the maligned spiritistic realm.

Due to the nature of prolonged and often severe sexual or physical abuses that had resulted in fragmented memories within a DID person, a part may surface, speaking in a different voice from the individual, or may even claim to be a demonic spirit. One of my clients was in a trance state when a part surfaced, and claimed she was a demon. That assertion was based on her husband’s accusation of a demonic presence based on what that part had said whenever she came out - that she had full control over the person and can force her to do anything she wanted. Usually surfacing past midnight, she would then physically attack her husband because of his earlier adultery. In a dialogue with that personality part, I discovered that she was not blasphemous towards the things of God. She became quite civil when I informed her that in my view, she was not a demon, and that I would regard her as any normal person would. From that moment the demonic labelling was permanently dropped.

After an apparently successful five-year treatment regime, three parts, differently named, suddenly surfaced together, one after the other, in another DID client. They had hidden in fear, deep within the subconscious of the person. Further enquiry provided the reason for their delayed appearances: the client had been put on a church platform, before a large congregation, and an exorcism performed, ostensibly ‘casting out’ these three parts that had surfaced. The pastor had called them demons. That was three years before she came for counselling. They had been listening in on my conversations with the other parts for nearly five years, and had decided, at last, to trust me sufficiently to come out. Subsequently, they were successfully integrated with her main memory system. The emphasis is that personality parts cannot be exorcised from the individual!

Different parts, depending on the timing of their creation, can embrace different religious faiths, and there appears to be no contradiction within the individual, whether the parts are co-conscious or otherwise. One part can be a Buddhist at age 25, while another can be a Christian at age 50, and they do not fight over their beliefs. When we understand that memory fragmentation is in the individual’s memory system, then it would be normal that our brain holds a variety of thoughts and experiences that make-up the whole person. Once integration of the fragmented memories had been achieved, the parts no longer exist and the individual’s memory is restored.

​A DID client was in counselling by a team of exorcists, and the pastor made a belittling humorous comment about the client, while she was in a trance state. The client heard it and regarded the comment as an insult - a personality part was created and named after the pastor. It is important to realise that due to the ability of the DID person to fragment their abuse memories, any comments or actions made in their presence that were deemed to be intolerably hurtful may lead to further memory fragmentation. As this practice is a learnt behaviour, it is not unusual for a DID patient to have at least a minimum of two to three parts, depending on their abuse history. One of my previous clients had over twenty personality parts.