Transcription
[Music] Hi. In the video today, we're going to be looking at a question that's been raised, uh, by a number of people actually, either in therapeutic settings or within the channel. And that's about working with alters who don't believe that they're sharing the main body.
So, this is an issue that's really there for people with Other Specified Dissociative Disorders (OSDD) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). So, within OSDD and DID, there's often a number of parts or alters or others that are there because of traumatic experiences, often early in childhood. And what can happen is the separation of these parts from the main, as it were, let's say, from the person who was born, occurs inside the brain in order to try and protect and defend against the overwhelming nature of the trauma. So, we take that as being read, working with OSDD and DID, and that's the manifestation, and that's what's seen in clinically.
Now, what can happen sometimes with these alters is that their separateness, they can often be really, really kind of compartmentalized to a degree that they don't think that they actually share the same body as anybody else, or they might not even be aware of anybody else. So, you can have some alters that are completely separate and isolated within their own sort of subsystems, who don't really understand that the body is growing. So, there could be child parts, for example, who believe that no matter what the chronology of the body is, they'll always be three, four, five years old, or whatever it might be.
And this can create great problems for people because the body is just one body. And the scientific biological fact of this is that it doesn't really matter how many parts exist within the system or many systems. There's only one brain and there's only one body. And we know this is factually because, sadly, if something really terrible happens to the brain or the body, it pretty much happens to every single part. So, this is, this is the sort of the one of those funny mixes between the biological reality and the, the experience, the sorry, the experience of having OSDD and DID.
It can feel very separate, and what can often take place is that alters then have an effect on the body without realizing that that body is being shared by everybody else. So, let's say, for example, that they might eat certain things, or they might harm the body, or in some cases, they might get, uh, like a radical haircut or a tattoo or something like that, which potentially has some sort of permanent effect on the body. And what can take place, let's say, sometimes with harming, is that one part does something to the body which creates a scar, and then when they sort of leave and others front, then they see the scar, and there's a lot of distress about where this scar has come from.
So, if the body isn't shared, it can create a great deal of conflict, confusion, and distress throughout the system. And there might be situations, let's say, where a part believes that they can eat a certain thing, whatever, however they might want, let's say ice cream, but then the whole of the, the person, if you like, or the rest of the system are either vegetarian or vegan, and they don't want to have that sort of product. So, you know, the, the nature of diet, the nature of how the body is looked after, really then becomes important.
You might have a part who doesn't want to wash their body because of shame or or fear or distress or some form of anxiety, which means that the body doesn't get washed, which means that everybody else has to walk around in a, you know, a body that might be body odor smelling, or the hair isn't washed and it's greasy, and all these sort of things. So, what one part does with a body can have a resounding impact on the rest of the system.
So, it's really, really important to get to a stage, and often this is done within therapy, and it's quite a tricky and difficult process, where all parts really come to the, the common understanding that they're all part of the same body. This does not mean that they are the same person. So, what we see in terms of alters might believe that they're separate people to the other ones in the system, and that's fine, because that's just the way that that's been experienced and understood. But there is realistically, and the reality is, there's only one body.
If you have parts that don't believe that they're sharing the same body as everybody else, then you can have problems about how that body is being looked after and managed. This becomes a really important part of the stabilization phase of therapy to try and get this communal understanding about the body. It doesn't mean that every part has to like being in the body, or that they want that body to look as it does, or act as it does. That's a kind of often more of a trauma exploration part of the therapy. The stabilization phase is that common understanding that all parts exist within the same body, and therefore, it is every single part's responsibility, to a greater or lesser degree, to maintain the body in the best possible shape and try and look after it as best as they can.
And that creates more difficulties as you go along. But unless there's this shared understanding to start with, the likelihood of the body being looked after over and over again over many years is, is reduced and becomes very difficult to achieve. The way to approach it is often very individual, and it completely depends on the nature of the system and the way that the parts are experienced in the body, the meaning of the body to them, the way that the body may have been traumatized earlier on in childhood, and again throughout later adolescence and into adulthood. So, it's a very unique and individual sort of approach that is best achieved through a therapeutic process, going through the stabilization phase, going through the trauma phase, and then coming out into the integration phase about how to actually use the body and how to own it, look after it, and manage it in everyday life.
So, it's, it's, it's a, in a way, a development of patience and understanding and of compassion. As always, right, these are, these are common themes that are present within the videos and within the work we do with dissociation, is to develop that empathy for the body, that understanding of what the body's been through, and then the, the ability to be able to manage and look after it. So, each part needs to be held with understanding and thoughtfulness and patience to try and use evidence about the aging process, about the way that the body looks, about the way the body moves, the care and attention that needs to be offered to the body by every part as a shared, responsible system.
I think the key, so if we were coming up with like the biggest hint towards how to do this, is that there's usually a part or a person who is more or less in charge. Certainly in OSDD, there is a sense that there is a sort of like a straightforward person running the show, and all the parts sort of exist behind the system. In DID, it gets a bit more complicated, but the essence of it is much the same. There's usually one important leading part who is kind of, you know, taking charge of things. That person or part needs to believe fully and firmly that all parts exist within the same body, because what can often happen is the person doesn't want the parts. It, it rejects the parts. It rejects the others. It doesn't really want to know. Pushes them to one side and it says that you don't belong here. And that can generate and perpetuate a sense of there being otherness. And those parts may, if they believe that they're in a different body, it maintains and it enables that illusion, if we want to use that word.
So, I think the biggest hint here is that the person who is running the show needs to know, believe, and start offering and sharing the message that we are all sharing the body, and that this body is really important. That might sound simple, but it really isn't easy, because that person may hate their own body. They may detest it. They may not want anything to do with it. And that can be part of the reasons why all the parts also don't want to be in that body. And they create this kind of manifestation of their own body. They visualize it. They, they own it and they run it in a different way. And that can often have very, very problematic effects physically for the body, but also psychologically for the system as a whole.
So, I think the first step is to, is to start developing the sense that we are all part of the same body, that we have one body, and it's our job to look after it, whether we like it or not. We've got to look after it. And then the development of thoughtfulness, compassion towards the parts that really find that difficult or who argue against it, that needs to be taken and understood and dealt with over a period of time. It's not a rush job, and it, but it's hugely important, and if it's not achieved, it can create sort of delays in the, in the process of therapy further on down the line.
So, please let me know what you think about this. It's a, it's a very, very difficult, uh, aspect of therapy for us to work with, and often people get very distressed and very confused, and they can't understand why their parts don't get this simple message. There are many, many reasons for it, often rooted in trauma, often rooted in attachment systems, and all of this has to be taken into account and understood, and that's part of the therapeutic process.
So, I hope this has been helpful. Please leave your comments, um, what you think about this. Uh, it'd be really useful to, to sort of share some understanding about, um, what this actually means for, for different people that have OSDD and DID and are finding this particular aspect of their experience of being very, very difficult. Thanks ever so much for watching. Uh, please do continue to like, subscribe, and share the videos. It's really good to know that that's happening, and we'll keep making content for you. So, in between now and the next video, as always, please do take great care.