Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder

by Tracy Alderman, Karen Marshall

Amongst Ourselves is a self-help guide written expressly for individuals with DID/MPD—and the first to provide readers with the practical steps they can take to cope with the condition and emerge with greater self-awareness and the skills to live a rich and rewarding life.

Authors Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall explain what DID is and provide a clear account of its underlying causes and symptoms. They describe what it’s like to live with DID and make practical suggestions for coming to terms with the condition, managing the confusion and self-destructive behaviors that often accompany it, and deciding to “come out” to others.

Karen lends a unique and immensely important perspective, in that she is able to speak as both a therapist and as an individual with DID. Through her insights, as well as guided exercises throughout the text, readers learn:


New skills and strategies to help them manage living with DID An appreciation for DID’s positive aspects What to expect from therapy and available treatment options How to become more aware of themselves and the ways in which DID affects their lives

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Mental Health, Counselling

236 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jessica Evermore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for anyone with a dissociative disorder, or anyone living with someone with a dissociative disorder. Since it is written by two psychologists, one of whom actually has DID, it makes you feel a little less crazy and a little less alone.

I think the biggest drawback is that it focuses entirely on the most extreme form of DID, whereas dissociative disorders are far often more subtly presented than that. For example, not everyone with a dissociative disorder has such distinct personalities that switch back and forth. Often the lines are less clearly drawn.

Also, I feel that it is detrimental, at least for me, to give alters different names and clearly drawn identities, an exercise suggested by the authors. To me, doing so would make it even more difficult to integrate those aspects into one being, because you now see them as their own, individual persons. But they're not really, at least not to many people with DID. They're simply aspects of yourself that were created by your own mind to handle trauma. I feel that giving them individual names and identities will make it even more difficult to accept them as all part of ones self. So I call mine "angry me" or "child me". Because they're all still me, in the end.

I've started reading Stranger in the Mirror too, by M. Steinberg, which I think is a great compliment to this book as well.

[OrchestraSystem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that helped us learn to live with DID. We still haven't done all of the exercises but we have read it all and it's fantastic. It validated us very much, it doesn't treat DID like this scary, horrible monster to be feared, it treats it as something to be embraced despite how scary it seems. It's one of the first books we've read about DID that actually validates non-human alters too, which is fantastic for us because that's something we have many of.

We'd highly recommend this book to anyone who has DID or anyone who knows someone with DID. It has activities through it for people who have DID to help them learn new ways to cope with being DID. It also has sections at the back for family, partners and therapists with their own activities too. So it's a helpful book for everyone, but I'd recommend that even those without DID read the entire book and not just the small sections at the back for them.

[Angie crosby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Includes exercises that are helpful as well as tips to living day to day with DID.

[Blu · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant for those just starting to understand their condition and who are trying to build some level of communication. there is also information for families, etc which is really useful - especially the section on learning intimacy for partners & also safety plans for each system member. I'd love there to be a more indepth version for those who are a few steps up from this but it's invaluable nonetheless.

[Miranda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, I couldn’t even make it past chapter 2 after reading the “Satanic Panic” bologna. My partner happens to be a Satanist and I am Pagan. Both of which were told to contain rituals with, “sacrifices and sexual abuse.” I understand this was written in the early nineties, but good grief! What was the point of putting all that in the book?! There’s no reason why this couldn’t have been explained in an objective manner.

All I’m saying, is that it was in bad taste to include that and single out certain religions. Such a shame, I was really hoping to learn more about coping with DID, but I’m too turned off to continue reading this book.

However, there is some useful information in this book. If you can get past all that, maybe this book will be good for you. As for my fellow Pagans, there are many other resources out there that aren’t so outdated.

By the way, I’m not going to argue with anyone here in the comments. So please, don’t waste my time. We can agree to disagree.

[Laura Lepich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for anyone who dissociates. I have not been able to find any other book that gives suggestions and ideas about getting through the day. Just doing the basic things can seem impossible sometimes. But this book is amazing I wish I could have gotten it right when I was diagnosed.
. anyone knows of any books similar to this, I’d love to get let titles. am sure this will stay my favorite. Thanks

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[Maria Trying to write my book Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

An accurate account of a woman dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder and her partner's observations and assistance that helped heal her condition.

[Anjuli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great for people just learning about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). One of the authors has DID. It is definetly not an in-depth look at DID for professionals. For lay people it is a good book explaining some of the many causes of DID in childhood (not all from abuse) and gives some basic exercises to see 1) if you have DID and 2) if you have it, how to map your system and how to get along with everyone in your system.

[Liz Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book had a good approach. It was both informative but not written at such a level as to be confusing.