From the Bookshelf of Dissociative Identity Disorder Study Group…

El yo atormentado

Onno van der Hart,

Kathy Steele

Why we're reading this: The Haunted Self en español
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Oct 11, 2018 Lore LongSoulSystem rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: life-impact, nonfiction, tid-read, tid-favoritos, trastorno-de-identidad-disociativo, 2018

This is THE BOOK of Dissociation, from BPD, PTSD, C-PTSD, OSDD and DID.

A very must read for professionals, therapists, researchers, patients and loved ones. If you want to know how dissociation works, why it works, why we do it, and why it's a covert dissorder, please read this.

It's a tough read. But it will worth it. And yes, this is a theory, but it's absurdly supported and well researched.

...more

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Dec 05, 2019 Iamshadow rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, multiplicity

I wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. It wasn't so much the technical language - though I did struggle with all the jargon at times - it was a remove, a coldness, an othering I felt in the text that didn't really dissipate and stopped me connecting with this work. That isn't to say I didn't find it interesting. It's an interesting theory, and one that's all the rage right now, so it was something I wanted to understand deeper. It is a book I'll reread at some point just to firm up my I wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. It wasn't so much the technical language - though I did struggle with all the jargon at times - it was a remove, a coldness, an othering I felt in the text that didn't really dissipate and stopped me connecting with this work. That isn't to say I didn't find it interesting. It's an interesting theory, and one that's all the rage right now, so it was something I wanted to understand deeper. It is a book I'll reread at some point just to firm up my understanding. But I think a lot of people don't mark what the authors themselves say quite firmly - that it is a theory, one they've worked hard on, yes, but just a theory that is open to input and correction, and one that doesn't have any studies devoted to it, yet.

The theory of structural dissociation just doesn't work for some people. For some systems, it just doesn't fit. For anyone who has a system that strongly identifies as having an original or a core, it doesn't fit. And I've seen at least one high number/polyfragmented system say it doesn't fit their experience at all, too. For people with traumagenic BPD, where do they fit? They're sort of included as having a dissociative disorder in the text, but they don't fit on the neat linear spectrum the book proposes (from simple PTSD right through to DID). Also, what about things like Depersonalisation/Derealisation Disorder, Dissociative Fugue, or Dissociative Amnesia? These aren't addressed as discrete conditions, only as features of the ones on the proposed spectrum, even though people do receive these diagnoses on their own.

A lot of people with a diagnosis on the proposed spectrum have a dual diagnosis of more than one of the listed points on the scale - DID, OSDD, BPD, PTSD, c-PTSD, or some kind of developmental, attachment, or betrayal trauma. Does the linear scale even work as a concept when there are multiple overlapping diagnoses? Surely a colour wheel concept, like this reimagining of the autism spectrum, is going to be more accurate for at least some of these people. A straight line doesn't work for autism, for gender, or for sexuality, because it's limiting things to a two dimensional plane and a binary way of being. I don't think it works for something as individual as trauma, self, or personality, either.

Yes, there's a lot of value in this work. It's been constructed with care. The proposed guide for working through stages in therapy is going to really benefit certain people for whom that approach is helpful. But readers should read it with the understanding that it's not gospel. It's an idea. It's a box that fits some and not others. ...more

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Jul 03, 2022 ❄Elsa Frost❄ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-study, speak-up-about-trauma, dissociative-disorders, dissociative-identity-disorder, plural

So having DID and reading this was interesting. Of course, thinking here that the structural dissociation theory does not hold up well for a number of reasons, but the treatment plans for especially DID helps a lot.

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