Dissociative Identity Disorder: Treatment Perspective - Part 5

​Often, in a strange way, the person who had traumatized the individual (i.e., the DID patient) has an alter after their name or nickname. Understandably, such alters are not co-conscious with the victim. In fact, the more traumatic the memory, it is likely the fragmented memory will be buried deep within the subconscious of the victim and may only surface towards the end of the treatment regime. 

So, a multiple rape victim may have several alters, each named after a perpetrator. The patient, most likely, has no complete memory of any of those incidents, or very sketchy ones. She may deny that they ever occurred. Therefore, when an (perpetrator) alter surfaces, the client will not be able to hear him audibly. Successful treatment that would lead to the integration of these truncated memories would be for the victim to hear the (perpetrator) part’s story. Under a trance state or hypnotic state, with the consent of the rapist alter, the victim is called out to listen in on the former’s story. 

Sometimes, permission is not given if the alter is not ready to self-reveal to the victim. On occasions, alters will refuse permission to share their traumatic tale as they had been keeping it for so long to themselves, and they assumed that they are separate ‘persons’ from the victim. In which case, the object of this intriguing eye-opening process is to illustrate to these alters that they share the same body with the victim.  Again, this can only be completed under hypnosis, as it requires alternately, both the alter and the victim to be co-conscious at the same time as they literally ‘see’ that they occupy one body. 

Let’s assume permission had been given by the personality part. Then hearing one another speak aids in their understanding that there is a memory that is sitting outside the main memory system of the victim.  With their permission, integrating their memories would be the final step. We will address the integration process later.

​Forgiveness, a positive universal human trait, is necessary for emotional and spiritual healing. However, in the case of a dissociated individual, where emotional and physical abuses are, at times, invariably horrendous, to immediately seek forgiveness for the abuser is controversial. This is especially if the perpetrator is still in proximity to the abused, either living with them or have regular visiting rights. Forgiving the abuser as a pre-condition to recovery from rage and other psychopathologies engendered by sexual and physical abuses had been intensely debated in the psychological and therapeutic arena. It needs to be understood that forgiving is not a condoning or excusing of the crime perpetrated. It is important to predicate that the victim does not say that what had been done to her was ‘acceptable or not so bad.’ Forgiveness is not a one-time, clear-cut decision. If it occurs, it is because of confronting painful past experiences and healing of old wounds. The prospect of revictimization due to a consequence of premature forgiveness is very real.