Dissociation
I am a dissociation friendly therapist. I have experience of caring for people who live with dissociation, and plural identities, in both my personal life and professional roles. I will stay alongside whoever is present during our sessions and I welcome all parts of you.
“All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story.”
Dissociation can be a creative way of protecting your core self from pain and distress. We can all dissociate; we might daydream, disengage from emotional and physical pain, or we might mentally escape from the horror of overwhelming events in our lives.
Sometimes, if overwhelming trauma happens repeatedly in early life, we can dissociate parts of our identity and create distinct personalities. This is known as dissociative identity disorder (DID) and has previously been known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). I prefer to consider this as plurality; the idea that there is more than one of you. This is a way of safeguarding parts of yourself and creating some order in the chaos of repeated interpersonal trauma.
If your stories are held by plural parts of you, you may experience gaps in memory and perhaps time will not feel linear for you. I understand that this can make the journey of knowing who you are and why a more complicated feat. I can be alongside you, each of you, as we explore together what this means in your life. I do not see plurality as something to be fixed. My hope is that we can work together to know and accept your parts, making internal communication easier and helping your parts to work in greater harmony.
If you are reading this and recognise that you are part of a plural system, I understand that you may be having mixed reactions to my words. Perhaps there’s a fear of being known, a sense of anticipation, or maybe even hope. I would like to help you work with the sense of threat trauma creates, and alleviate some of the pressures of living with plural identities, so that the task of living is more comfortable and fulfilling. I would also like to reassure you that healing does not require the retelling of your story, how much you share is always your choice. Our work will go gently and at your pace.
If you experience dissociation and would like to reach out, I’d love to hear from you.