Articles and Blogs

Dissociative survivors talk about what is hardest for them in living with dissociative identity disorder.

Dissociative survivors face a range of challenges and here, in their own words, they describe the things they find hardest about life with dissociative identity disorder.

How do you go about getting a diagnosis for dissociative identity disorder? In this guest blog, one client describes her long struggle for treatment on the NHS and the path to the Clinic for Dissociative Survivors.

I applied, with Emmott Snell’s assistance, for CICA. This is the compensation that the government pays out to victims of crime, administrated by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. In the end I was unsuccessful, but the experience was full of learning that may be helpful to others, and so I share it here for that purpose.

The issue of boundaries had always been a non-issue for me: I saw my clients for 50 minutes; there was no contact between sessions (no need for contact between sessions, surely?); it was a purely professional relationship. No dramas, no big deal. And then I started work with my first really traumatised client, and everything was called into question.

My therapist is retiring next year. I’ve worked with her for nearly five years and I’m not ready to finish therapy yet, so this is a difficult issue for me. I’ve realised that many other people face the same or similar situations, so I thought I’d write about how it’s impacting me and how I’m dealing with it.

I was abused by my dad, and also my grandad. And in many ways, I want to just leave it there and not say any more, because every time I say it a huge cloud of fear comes up and a voice screams in my ear that none of it really happened. It’s like, for a moment, my heart falls into my feet and I’m overcome by this terror that I really am just making it up.

Dr Nick Read, a retired medical professor and now a psychotherapist, explains the link between trauma and irritable bowel syndrome - and what can be done about it.

The beginning of understanding was really just that—a beginning. Little did I know how much I had to learn and how much I really didn’t know. When my peer supervisor mentioned to me this strange word ‘dissociation’, it was an entirely new concept to me. Now I wonder how that can be.

Suddenly, like a party popper, out came her words. ‘It happens all the time. People will be talking to me and I can’t remember what they’ve been saying. I used to think I was just forgetful. But it’s not that. It’s like they can be talking to me and I know rationally who they are but it’s as if I’ve never met them before in my life

How can we explain the experience of dissociation? Using an analogy from the superhero movie 'Avengers Assemble', one survivor explains what life is like for her to live with multiple parts of the personality.

After sexual abuse, it's very common to have difficulties in your sexual relationship. But is that just the way that it is and we have to just accept it? Or is there a way towards a fulfilling sex life after trauma?

‘Child grooming’ refers to a series of actions deliberately undertaken in order to develop an emotional bond with a child in order to sexually abuse them. Grooming increases the availability of the victim for abuse whilst decreasing the likelihood of detection for the abuser.

Starting with her very first dissociative client, in this article sensorimotor psychotherapist Margaret Collingwood talks about her journey of working with clients with dissociative identity disorder and how she has learned to understand their parts in terms of their survival function.

Duncan Craig is the founder of Survivors Manchester. In this powerful article he examines the impact of sexual abuse on men.

Sexual abuse is still a taboo subject. It is generally thought that between 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 girls experience sexual abuse before the age of consent. But despite this, we rarely read about the impact that might have on women experiencing pregnancy, birth and then parenthood. And it can have a huge effect on any or all of those aspects of life.