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Title: Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities
ISBN: 0307382664
Author:
Richard Baer
Publicate Date: 2007-10-02
Publish: 2007-10-02
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $10.59
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.88
Amazon Merchant Price: $16.47
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1: Mixed feelings, mixed people
We are multiple and one of us, Sue Adams, is a psychotherapist and the daughter of a psychiatrist. Having worked in the medical and mental health fields for nearly 40 years and struggled with suicidal ideation and attempts since age 8 only being diagnosed DID 12 years ago; I have worked with or personally known 4 people with this same diagnosis. I have also known of several support groups with many others. And thus my problem with this book.
Several times Dr. Baer states that mpd is rare. It is not.
Whether it is a disease or not depends on how you emotionally react to the diagnosis. It is an Axis 1 disorder in the DSM so it qualifies in the medical and mental health (and insurance) industries as a mental disorder. And it certainly is a dis-order which causes dis-ease. Some of us have a hard time functioning in this world.
We/me/I are/am on disability now though still functioning as a counselor/social worker on behalf of nearly everyone God puts in our path. Currently a homeless man with DID is living in our empty apartment, a homeless woman just moved out of our spare bedroom, and we counsel daily with several ppl.
This story was triggering at times. Scary to read from the perspective of the caregiver and from the perspective of a patient/client.
What Dr. Baer apparently does not know about (and this is sad since he is now a Medicare overseer)many of us non"rare" mpders who are on disability because of this "disorder" do not have the luxury of insurance coverage to see a psychiatrist or even a psychologist. No, most of us who are brave enough to even try to get help go to the local mental health agencies where medicaid is the only coverage. And often that is not enough because in some states DID is a secondarily covered disorder! In counties where an ignorant doctor believes that there is no such thing as MPD there may be no coverage at all!
Dr. Baer does us a disservice by indicating this disorder is rare and implying that Karen's story is at once unique and ordinary. With the state of health care in this country, we all should be able to see that is is a miracle that Karen was able to see Dr. Baer at all and even more that they were able to continue for such a long period of time. I have had 6 counselors and practically had to beg a private psychiatrist to just see us a little bit and that we would "be good".
Excellent story, well written, true to life. Gripping and readable. I could not put it down for the sake of how good it is and how it touched us personally. Thank you Dr. Baer for your research, effort, concern and professional approach. Thank you for your honesty and openess about your own struggles through this battle. But most of all thank you Karen for your bravery, willingness and amazing sustaining love.
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2: MPD - believe it.
To be able to be any one of seventeen people, even different genders, whenever you want--that sounds pretty damn good to me. To have at your service: a very responsible "father figure"; a super organized "mother"; an artist; a devout religious servant of God;
An angry boy to scare away tormenters; a perfect accommodating girl for dating and wifely duties; another perfect girl for household duties; a really good liar & thief; someone to absorb physical pain and be sick; someone to be submissive and a people pleaser; a boy to be the good son; another person to take on the blues; a girl to eat as much as she wants--man-oh-man--I wish I could do that.
Most of us have to settle into one person--one personality--with maybe a couple of masks we put on for public interactions; and that's it. The problem is, the trouble is ... and that's an understatement ... is that in order to posses such a skill you have to endure horrendous physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse and torture as a child. AND, in addition, have some sort of genius intelligence.
Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is a rare human condition: where the brain becomes a compartmentalized system that houses many different identities, and the physical body becomes an empty vessel to be filled with a different "person" -- whenever the external situation calls for a particular "type" of person. But as with most "defense mechanisms" the person eventually suffers so greatly that suicide, or some sort of aberrant aggression or abuse to others, becomes the only way out. The end result of MPD is usually the criminal justice system, a mental institute, or homelessness.
The latest documented case is in the book, "Switching Time" (2007) by psychiatrist Richard Baer, who is now the Medical Director for Medicare in four Mid-Western states. He treated the patient with psychoanalysis and hypnosis. (There are no effective drug treatments for personality disorders.) Of course, Baer didn't know what he had at first. He thought he had a depressed patient and so treated her with anti-depressants, which didn't work. So he doubled the dose. Then he tripled the dose, with no effect. He was losing patience with the patient's non-responsiveness. It was like she wasn't TRYING to get better. She was suicidal. She was self mutilating. She told him of "losing time"-- memory loss. She was married with two children.
Eighteen months into the therapy, Baer suspects MPD. It is another three years before he tells his patient. Soon after, he gets a letter from one of the alters--it's Claire, a seven year old girl who falls in love with Dr. Baer. Therapy begins in earnest. The therapy is all consuming. Baer loses all other private patients and just does his administrative job. He loses his wife. He has no life. He eventually integrates all seventeen personalities into one. It is sad ... because they were real people and had lives. They were simply amazing caretakers of the person who had been used and abused. It took eight years to get there (The actual integration of the seventeen alters took a little over a year.). It took another seven years before the patient could quit therapy, and doctor and patient said good-bye. That was sad. Dr. Baer and his patient had formed an attachment.
The alters started to emerge when the patient was one year old. Most were "born" between the ages of 10 and 12; when the abuse was most severe. The final integration of the final alter, the "father," occurred when the patient was thirty-eight years old. The "father" organized and planned the integration. He and the "mother" learned their parenting skills by watching television, shows like "Father Knows Best," when the patient was five--they were a quick study. The "father" learned to read when the patient was five; and read the complete dictionary, encyclopedia, and the Bible.
The patient now owns her own life and knows who she is. She divorced her abusive husband. Her primary abusers: grandfather, father, the priest, a policeman, and other "friends" are all dead. It is her wish that this never happen to another child. Her counsel is to "pay attention" to children, ask questions and demand answers if `things' don't seem right. Dr. Baer, it is safe to say ... was blown away.
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3: Having multiple personalities is not rare. Title is demeaning.
I'm both a survivor of long-term childhood abuse healed from most of the devastation caused by what is now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). And I am a psychotherapist trained to work with trauma survivors to include DID. Although any survivor with DID will tell you it is not a disorder but a blessing. No child could survive remembering such abuse. Survivors with DID are typically victims of early childhood incest.
As cited at the website for The National Center for Victims of Crime, father-daughter and stepfather-daughter incest is most commonly reported, with most of the remaining reports consisting of mother/stepmother-daughter/son incest. Prevalence of parental child sexual abuse is difficult to assess due to secrecy and privacy; some estimates show 20 million Americans have been victimized by parent incest as children. (Jeffrey Turner, 1996).
Let's just look at that figure of 20 million. The underestimated statistic typically used for DID is 1 in 100. Let's just say half of those with known incestuous families were under age six when abuse began. That leaves 1 in 100 out of 10 million people. That's 100,000 who likely have dissociated memories for childhood abuse, which usually do not surface until later in adulthood.
Numbers of alters has no relevance. The fact that the subject of the book had 17 personalities is not extraordinary or sensational. In fact he has done a great disservice to those who are psychotherapists working with those embarking on the grueling healing journey for DID. I became a psychotherapist at the end of my healing journey to guide others through that traumatic maze. It has never been "harrowing" for me to help another as a therapist. It should not have been "harrowing" for this author had he been correctly trained. It would have been harrowing, however, for his client.
There are ample resources for therapists working with dissociation including the ISSTD which can be found online. The ISSTD website includes a directory of members who at, the very least, are interested in learning how to treat DID.
I didn't read this book because I was offended by the title description. For a better read, Stranger in the Mirror is an excellent explanation of dissociation and DID. Although more therapeutic boundaries now exist for treating survivors with DID, the book Sybil remains an excellent account of healing.
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4: Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities by Richard Baer
I find the premise of this book to be both appalling and offensive! Multiple Personality Disorder, known for the past ten years as Disassotiative Identity Disorder, is neither UNCOMMON or is it a DISEASE. Children, innately equipped with a beautiful and highly developed ability to disassociate from traumatic events are able to "create" a "personality" or "alter" to experience and remember the trauma so that the child can survive the overwhelming sensations and impulses connected to the trauma. This coping mechanism is essential since the child has not yet developed an ability to understand or to, in a meaningful, retrievable manner store in the memory the details of trauma. Scientifically, the experience of the event(s) are compartmentalized into a group of synaptic connections in the brain that hold the data in a form that can be later retrieved when the individual is more able and is in a safer environment to process the data. These synaptic connections are usually separated from the numerous, interconnected synapses of the brain that allow the individual to function, grow, develop, and ultimately, to survive the trauma in a manner that protects the individual from being overcome by the overwhelming experience(s). Much more can be said in explanation of this wonderful ability, but that is the basic function of "personalities" or "compartmentalized synaptic connections" in the brain holding specific data related to a traumatic event. Disassociation only becomes a disorder when no longer needed to survive trauma, yet continues to be an individual's pervasive coping mechanism of life's challenges, by default. All people disassociate on one level or other on the vast continuum of disassociative behaviors, and even "disruptive" use of this ability as a coping mechanism to continue to protect an individual from the overwhelming trauma experienced in life is, in no way, "uncommon". Since the data contained within these compartmentalized synaptic connections is frequently stored as a "repressed memory", many people "function" in daily life without presuming to acknowledge or pursue a greater personal understanding of common daily experiences resulting from repressed memories of this type. Most people have become indoctrinated into the belief that one would rather live a pseudo-life with pain one can comprehend, than truly engage in real-life pain that is immensely difficult if not impossible to understand, and certainly not able to be controlled or managed in a manner that allows the individual to continue functioning as a "contributing member of society". Most people have bought the convenient yet deadly belief that, while secretly and frequently forcefully, yet subconsciously, withholding from oneself any content of the internal pain of life's many-layered abuses and traumatic events, bearing the daily burden of engaging with, welcoming, and processing internal turmoil and tremendous pain is only for the "less-fortunate, very rare" people of society who have a "harrowing life-story of abuse and trauma", and subsequently "suffer from a disease" that not even psychotherapists can fathom, let alone are trained to supportively assist in any hope of "recovery" of any ability to return to the factory of life and produce the way every other member of society is unspokenly expected to do in order to earn the label of a "productive" and thus "valuable", "acceptable", "problem-free" member of society. Most people, under such a spell, submit to a pseudo-life that allows the individual to produce all that is demanded by today's society by abandoning the internal, only to live within the confines and to portray a false external that convinces those surrounding the individual, if not the individual himself/herself, of such a pseudo-reality of "all is well". THIS condition meets the criteria of a "disease". A society that continues to sensationalize pain and horror, marketing it and selling it as a "rare" phenomena that results in a "life-consuming-disease" few, if any, "specialists" are able to comprehend or are able from which to "rescue" the person, in an effort to sacrificially and nobly return them to the doorsteps of such a society, is a society suffering from the greatest disease of all--the acceptance of the tyrannical propaganda defining "life" as "obtaining", or rather convincing oneself and those surrounding oneself that one has obtained, or is "adequately" enslaving oneself to the unending process of attempting to obtain, an "acceptable level" of "external success" as determined by the demands of a self-serving system devoid of any true, authentic understanding of, or legitimate commitment to unadulterated, honest, pain-embracing, LIFE for the sake of learning to KNOW oneself and one another, TO BE KNOWN by oneself and one another, and to TRUTHFULLY LOVE and BE LOVED.
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5: Magnificent
Amazing read. Really enjoyed the book. The look into the interworkings of the psyche was facinating. The way the brain can change its chemistry to a adapt to God aweful situations is prevelant in this book. The writing is not too clinical but it doesn't dumb down anything either. Highly recommended.
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