Transcription
Hi, in the video today we're going to be looking at aspects of conditions such as Other Specified Dissociative Disorder, known as OSDD, and Dissociative Identity Disorder, known as DID. And within these conditions, one of the defining characteristics is the presence of parts, or alters, or others. So many, many different names, but we're going to go with alters simply so that I don't get too repetitive saying the same thing over and over again.
Now, what happens in OSDD and DID is that there can either be a sort of an overt or a covert influence or interruption of these alters in everyday functioning. And what that means generally is that the person, or whoever's at sort of the front, goes through life and is engaging in various different activities in the world, and suddenly, or it can grow quite gently and slowly, there's an intrusion, or an interruption, or an influence. So it can either be in the form of voices being heard, or behaviors that start being enacted, or a feel that there's a compulsion to be driven towards a specific place or location, or action, or behavior, whatever it might be. And this can be very, very distressing for a lot of people who aren't used to it, who don't really understand what's going on.
And we see these intrusions or these influences from alters within OSDD and DID as being something that needs to be understood in order to build collaborative processes with these alters. And this is part of the stabilization phase of therapy which, if worked on, built and enhanced, actually makes the trauma exploration and the other features, which are a lot more difficult in therapy, simpler and easier to overcome because that collaborative process is essentially the foundation of most of the therapies which the specialist services working with OSDD and DID actually use.
What happens then is that the behavior, let's say, of these alters is not understood and therefore confuses the brain. It confuses the mind. It confuses the person upfront, or the part upfront, or whatever it might be. And that confusion can lead to frustration. That can lead to annoyance. That can lead to anger. And ultimately, sort of the worst-case scenario, is there's this sort of complete rejection of the alters. Like, "I don't want to hear, I don't want to know. I just push them away. I deny. I reject. I just, I, you know, I just want rid of them," becomes the sort of the narrative.
This is often what we hear when people sort of start in therapy and they say, "This is what my life has been like. They, I go through my everyday business. These alters sort of start taking over, or they start saying or doing all these things. It completely disrupts me. Stops me from having a functional life, and I just want rid of all of it and I want a normal life, whatever that might look like."
So this is incredibly difficult for people to understand, and this is why I thought this video would be useful because, again, it's a reminder for people that have already started doing this or have got used to some of these things but get stuck because we often sort of take these steps back when we're trying to understand things; or for people either newly diagnosed or trying to understand what's going on with these conditions, this is a really great starting place or somewhere to always go back to, to keep reminding ourselves how important it is to do this.
And when that rejection or that denial takes place, we stop listening. I mean, that's the essence of it, is that if we have to try and remind ourselves that alters behaving, or influencing, speaking, whatever it is, is a communication. Whatever it is, it's a communication. It's often in a language you don't understand because a lot of it is nonverbal. It's very behavioral. It's very action-orientated, but it's not always verbal.
It'd be great, wouldn't it, if if one of the alters just said, "You know what? This is how I feel. This is what's going on. I'd really like some assistance, and would you be able to help me, and all I need is this, and then I'll be fine, and I'll scoot off." Now, that's great, but that really rarely happens. Certainly in the initial starting phases of a person's understanding of their system. Might happen later on in therapy, but certainly not. It's a common, it's certainly not a common experience.
To start then is to accept and acknowledge that these communications take place, whether we like it or not, and they are there to be understood. To not understand them is to not do anything with them, and if we don't do anything with them, it's like a boomerang; the behavior just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating.
My advice realistically then is to, while there may be frustration and annoyance, is to try and hold that in check and allow curiosity to take place. And when I say curiosity, what I mean is a gentle questioning. It's an, it's, it's partly standing back and going, "I wonder what this is actually meaning," or, "I wonder what's going on." And also, "Is there anything I can do to help?" So it's kind of a curiosity and a questioning, but in a very gentle and calm way, which is incredibly difficult, certainly when under duress. So sometimes this is one of those things that after the behavior's taken place, you can go back and you can kind of try and work it out after the effect, when maybe there's a bit more room to be a bit more patient and understanding.
And I suppose the hint, or the key, if we like, to trying to understand this process is to see that the origin of the behavior or the influence comes from the past and not the present. It's happening in the present, but the origin of it, the causation of that alter, is realistically formed in the past. So it's a, it's like a time-traveling communication. So whatever's taking place in the present is being affected by what's happening, what's happened in the past.
So this is the context, and the curiosity means that we have to look at these behaviors and go, "Okay, I see what's happening in the present. I don't like it, or I don't understand it, but where could it have come from, given my own specific history?" So I can't give any recommendations about what that might mean here because it's kind of infinite. What we can look at is saying that the goal, and certainly if a person is in therapy doing this, which we would always recommend because it's so much easier when you've got someone else who is emotionally detached from the actual presence of what's going on to help with that understanding, and therapists working with OSDD and DID, this is what they should be really good at doing, is trying to decode, trying to analyze the information, break it down and work it out as to what it may be.
So it's okay to just accept that behavior, but we need to learn what that behavior is actually trying to tell us because if we can work it out, then what we do is we may end up filling an unmet need for that alter, which brings about a sort of a calm and a harmony to the system, which can ultimately be good in, in, in all areas of life.
The question that I would put then, this sort of gentle questioning, is, "What could this behavior represent, given my past, given where I've come from, given where these alters have emerged from, given that this behavior has happened in this moment, in this time, what could it represent?" And that's really the question. So I can't give those answers here because it depends on the questions, it depends on the behaviors, it depends on the history, but this is the way that we would approach it therapeutically, and this is the way that therapists can do things, but is something that we set as a homework task, if you like, in therapy to say to people, when these behaviors are happening, "Stop, get a notebook out, write down what the behavior is, write down what the context is, and then try and see if you can decipher or decode that behavior." Because when you can, it's amazingly helpful because it really does develop that empathy that I keep talking about in these videos over and over again for those alters. They are formed in trauma. They are trying to work through that traumatic, that experience that they've had through these behaviors, and they're trying to build a communication and a connection. They're sending all the messages out. It's up for us on the outside to be able to understand that.
So either from a therapist's perspective, like myself, or from the individual's perspective who's having to live with this, to try and decode gently and with curiosity to develop empathy, to develop understanding, and that really does change the whole ball game entirely once this process starts taking place.
So that's really the video. It's, it's, it's, we misunderstanding behavior is so easy, especially if we're in an emotional state. So we try and become curious rather than, you know, angry and annoyed and frustrated, and that curiosity can lead to decoding any information that's coming out of these behaviors, which allows the build of empathy and allows us to break down exactly what's going on, make more sense of it, and then be a lot calmer and to be able to deal with these things.
So I'll be really looking forward to hearing what your comments are after this video. Always great to hear, see what people have made of this and see what experiences people may have already had once they've been able to do this and whether it's worked because it is great knowing that other people are doing this because it helps when things don't work is to say, "Keep going, keep going and keep going."
So, thanks ever so much for watching. Uh, please do all the usual stuff, the like, subscribing and the sharing of this information as you will, and keep watching these videos and in between now and the next one, please do take great care.