Trauma/Dissociative Disorders & PTSD
TRAUMA DISORDERS: I consider a trauma disorder to be anyone who has had a painful experience in their life and it is still affecting them in a negative way. It can show up as a whole host of symptoms, and can affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It is usually driven by some old pain that has gotten stuck inside and leaks out anywhere from part of the time to all of the time. Simply put, I help people get rid of old pain.
DISSOCIATION: Dissociation is a normal tuning out of the outside world that people do on a regular basis. One example is daydreaming. It is subject to conscious control. People can start and stop any time they want.
DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER: A Dissociative Disorder is a defensive or survival dissociating. Some people refer to it as "pathological". I don't. Anything that allows a person to survive is not pathological. It is also referred to as a "disorder". There is nothing disorderly about it. It is predictable, understandable, and curable. It is not a mental "illness", it is a "condition", much like a broken bone is a condition not an illness. It involves a structural splitting of the personality due to extreme trauma. It is not subject to conscious control.
When anyone, a child, teenager or adult is hit with some kind of trauma, stress or pain that is overwhelming to them, they have 3 choices: they can die, go crazy or split, meaning the personality can split. Fortunately the splitting is a survival mechanism that is built into the human mind that allows people to survive stress or trauma that otherwise would kill the body or destroy the mind. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. It is how healthy minds handle overwhelming stress. It is an extreme avoidance reaction.
When the individual is hit with the trauma or stress and starts going into overwhelm, a piece of the personality breaks off inside and forms a new individual, similar to how identical twins are formed in the physical world. The part that splits off has its own consciousness, memories, likes and dislikes and skills. When it splits off it absorbs the trauma that is there, including things like physical pain if there is some, strong emotions like anger, fear, depression, etc., and some or all of the memories of the event. It then separates itself from the rest of the system so the rest of the system can go on functioning fairly normally. These alters (alternate personalities) also tend to build a wall of insulation around themselves to protect the rest of the system from the pain they are stuck with. They feel that pain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It doesn't go away, is always really big, and the only relief they get is when they sleep.
Their whole purpose for being there is to protect the person from pain, which works imperfectly at best. They essentially become reservoirs of old pain and the pain leaks out anyway, from part of the time to all of the time. The person on the outside feels it anyway. The splitting is a child's defense and it works very well: the person survives. It can cause all kinds of problems though, later in life, and affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Dissociative Disorders are not a big deal in that we understand them, we know how to fix them, and they are 100% curable. They are a big deal due to the negative impact the pain has on peoples' lives. It can affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors. People have all kinds of creative ways to deal with the pain. Obsessions, compulsions, addictions and many more conditions are creative ways people have found to "self-medicate" against the pain. Although these all have negative consequences to them, they are worth it to the person to get even temporary relief from the old pain they don't understand and haven't been able to get rid of. The most common forms of pain reported are depression, anxiety and anger.
DISSSOCIATIVE DISORDERS LISTED IN THE DSM-5:
Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder, is the most popular Hollywood style dissociative disorder, but is not the most common in the real world. It involves "losing time", not remembering what happened during chunks of time, anywhere from hours to days.
Dissociative Fugue involves traveling away from home and not remembering how he/she got there. It can be unnerving and distressful for the family.
Dissociative Amnesia is an inability to remember things that have happened of a stressful or traumatic nature. The memories are split off and not subject to conscious recall.
Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. Depersonalization is feeling like you are not real. Some describe it as feeling detached from one's body, or like being in a dream state, sleep walking through life, or having a brain fog, or feeling like a robot. It can involve feeling like an observer of one's body or thoughts. Derealization means things outside of the body don't seem real. People and objects have been described as distorted, foggy, dreamlike or lifeless.
Unspecified or Other Specified Dissociative Disorder, replaces Dissociative Disorder, NOS. It is in my opinion the most common occurring form of a dissociative disorder. I think of it as a milder case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, where the person has separate functioning parts of the personality (alters), but does not "lose time", have no memory of what they did for a period of time. It is extremely common and accounts for a lot of old emotional pain people suffer with.
Not listed as a Dissociative Disorder in the DSM 5, but should be:
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, PTSD can be cured. PTSD received its name during the Vietnam War era, but the condition has been around for a very long time. During the Civil War it was called "soldier's heart" or "nostalgia". During WWI it was "shell shock". During WWII it was "battle fatigue". Now from the Iraq war it is "combat stress". PTSD by any other name is still PTSD. The condition is not limited to soldiers. It afflicts civilians who have been exposed to life threatening experiences, abuse or loss. The symptoms include: re-experiencing of the events by flashbacks, nightmares, thoughts, distress or overreactions; avoidance and numbing, amnesia, loss of interest in people or activities, belief they have no future; and increased arousal like trouble sleeping, angry outbursts, hypervigilance, easily startled, and poor concentration.
The Veterans Administration claims 400,000 veterans registered with them have PTSD. There are also about 150,000 active duty military with PTSD. The VA also estimates 5 million civilians in the US have PTSD. There are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who have PTSD. It is way past time for an effective treatment for PTSD.
Conventional treatments for PTSD have had poor treatment outcomes, in my opinion, primarily because they have been treating it as an anxiety disorder. The DSM-5 has moved it from Anxiety Disorders to a new heading of Trauma Disorders, an admission they misclassified and have been mistreating this condition since 1980. If PTSD is not an anxiety disorder, then what is it? I assert it is a dissociative disorder. PTSD can be cured when it is treated as a dissociative disorder. The argument over whether or not it is a dissociative disorder has been going on since 1889. It is time for the mental health profession to give serious consideration to this idea, and conduct research to prove whether or not treating PTSD as a dissociative disorder is effective. For the past 22 years, every time I have treated PTSD as a dissociative disorder the client has gotten better. The therapists I have trained in this technique have gotten the same results. If you would like to see these results for yourself please contact me.
TRAUMA DISORDERS: I consider a trauma disorder to be anyone who has had a painful experience in their life and it is still affecting them in a negative way. It can show up as a whole host of symptoms, and can affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It is usually driven by some old pain that has gotten stuck inside and leaks out anywhere from part of the time to all of the time. Simply put, I help people get rid of old pain.
DISSOCIATION: Dissociation is a normal tuning out of the outside world that people do on a regular basis. One example is daydreaming. It is subject to conscious control. People can start and stop any time they want.
DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER: A Dissociative Disorder is a defensive or survival dissociating. Some people refer to it as "pathological". I don't. Anything that allows a person to survive is not pathological. It is also referred to as a "disorder". There is nothing disorderly about it. It is predictable, understandable, and curable. It is not a mental "illness", it is a "condition", much like a broken bone is a condition not an illness. It involves a structural splitting of the personality due to extreme trauma. It is not subject to conscious control.
When anyone, a child, teenager or adult is hit with some kind of trauma, stress or pain that is overwhelming to them, they have 3 choices: they can die, go crazy or split, meaning the personality can split. Fortunately the splitting is a survival mechanism that is built into the human mind that allows people to survive stress or trauma that otherwise would kill the body or destroy the mind. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. It is how healthy minds handle overwhelming stress. It is an extreme avoidance reaction.
When the individual is hit with the trauma or stress and starts going into overwhelm, a piece of the personality breaks off inside and forms a new individual, similar to how identical twins are formed in the physical world. The part that splits off has its own consciousness, memories, likes and dislikes and skills. When it splits off it absorbs the trauma that is there, including things like physical pain if there is some, strong emotions like anger, fear, depression, etc., and some or all of the memories of the event. It then separates itself from the rest of the system so the rest of the system can go on functioning fairly normally. These alters (alternate personalities) also tend to build a wall of insulation around themselves to protect the rest of the system from the pain they are stuck with. They feel that pain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It doesn't go away, is always really big, and the only relief they get is when they sleep.
Their whole purpose for being there is to protect the person from pain, which works imperfectly at best. They essentially become reservoirs of old pain and the pain leaks out anyway, from part of the time to all of the time. The person on the outside feels it anyway. The splitting is a child's defense and it works very well: the person survives. It can cause all kinds of problems though, later in life, and affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Dissociative Disorders are not a big deal in that we understand them, we know how to fix them, and they are 100% curable. They are a big deal due to the negative impact the pain has on peoples' lives. It can affect thoughts, feelings and behaviors. People have all kinds of creative ways to deal with the pain. Obsessions, compulsions, addictions and many more conditions are creative ways people have found to "self-medicate" against the pain. Although these all have negative consequences to them, they are worth it to the person to get even temporary relief from the old pain they don't understand and haven't been able to get rid of. The most common forms of pain reported are depression, anxiety and anger.
DISSSOCIATIVE DISORDERS LISTED IN THE DSM-5:
Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder, is the most popular Hollywood style dissociative disorder, but is not the most common in the real world. It involves "losing time", not remembering what happened during chunks of time, anywhere from hours to days.
Dissociative Fugue involves traveling away from home and not remembering how he/she got there. It can be unnerving and distressful for the family.
Dissociative Amnesia is an inability to remember things that have happened of a stressful or traumatic nature. The memories are split off and not subject to conscious recall.
Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. Depersonalization is feeling like you are not real. Some describe it as feeling detached from one's body, or like being in a dream state, sleep walking through life, or having a brain fog, or feeling like a robot. It can involve feeling like an observer of one's body or thoughts. Derealization means things outside of the body don't seem real. People and objects have been described as distorted, foggy, dreamlike or lifeless.
Unspecified or Other Specified Dissociative Disorder, replaces Dissociative Disorder, NOS. It is in my opinion the most common occurring form of a dissociative disorder. I think of it as a milder case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, where the person has separate functioning parts of the personality (alters), but does not "lose time", have no memory of what they did for a period of time. It is extremely common and accounts for a lot of old emotional pain people suffer with.
Not listed as a Dissociative Disorder in the DSM 5, but should be:
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, PTSD can be cured. PTSD received its name during the Vietnam War era, but the condition has been around for a very long time. During the Civil War it was called "soldier's heart" or "nostalgia". During WWI it was "shell shock". During WWII it was "battle fatigue". Now from the Iraq war it is "combat stress". PTSD by any other name is still PTSD. The condition is not limited to soldiers. It afflicts civilians who have been exposed to life threatening experiences, abuse or loss. The symptoms include: re-experiencing of the events by flashbacks, nightmares, thoughts, distress or overreactions; avoidance and numbing, amnesia, loss of interest in people or activities, belief they have no future; and increased arousal like trouble sleeping, angry outbursts, hypervigilance, easily startled, and poor concentration.
The Veterans Administration claims 400,000 veterans registered with them have PTSD. There are also about 150,000 active duty military with PTSD. The VA also estimates 5 million civilians in the US have PTSD. There are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who have PTSD. It is way past time for an effective treatment for PTSD.
Conventional treatments for PTSD have had poor treatment outcomes, in my opinion, primarily because they have been treating it as an anxiety disorder. The DSM-5 has moved it from Anxiety Disorders to a new heading of Trauma Disorders, an admission they misclassified and have been mistreating this condition since 1980. If PTSD is not an anxiety disorder, then what is it? I assert it is a dissociative disorder. PTSD can be cured when it is treated as a dissociative disorder. The argument over whether or not it is a dissociative disorder has been going on since 1889. It is time for the mental health profession to give serious consideration to this idea, and conduct research to prove whether or not treating PTSD as a dissociative disorder is effective. For the past 22 years, every time I have treated PTSD as a dissociative disorder the client has gotten better. The therapists I have trained in this technique have gotten the same results. If you would like to see these results for yourself please contact me.