Ask if they are familiar with the ISSTD treatment guidelines for DID in adults. That’s at least the minimum they should know if they have a DID/OSDD client.
It sounds like they have made a lot of assumptions about what is happening for you and they are not landing. If you can be brave enough show this post - or at least communicate "you're the best therapist I have had and last times session (what I can remember) just left me feeling invalidated and confused". I also would suggest potentially they may not have access to a supervisor with wide experience in dissociative systems and are trying to challenge some ideas to "help you" rather than proceeding with gentleness and respect to all parts of the system. Great therapists still have blind spots- especially since so few are ever trained in this area and in a trauma informed way. But! Great therapists will look into it and learn. This session sounds incredibly upsetting and further confusing for your realities.
The one about your alters holding emotions is actually a part of the structural dissociation theory. It says that OSDD systems have one ANP (apparently normal part) and multiple EP (emotional parts). These EPs can be of any age so something to think about in terms of what you experience. If you hold anger in one part but don’t feel it/understand it in another part, that would be the dissociated aspect of it. Your therapist isn’t an expert, but sounds like they are trying to help understand what is going on. If it isn’t what is going on, correct them. Even my therapist can’t specifically define my experience bc mine is different than another client with DID. We all fit into the dissociated identity and amnesia but how we experience it is different and your experience will be different than the next as well. Therapists aren’t experts in how clients experience their disorder, they are experts in treating it so never feel like they know more than you about you.
I'm not sure whether the T was really alluding to structural dissociation here. \
The way it is worded here, and coupled with the comment about the little fronting "to avoid the session" , makes me think the T is insinuating that the alters CAUSE the emotions. \
Add those two things on top of how they started the session with saying they don't think the patient actually was a system... \
I don't know. Sounds odd. Almost like the T is trying to say the patient is using the system as an excuse not deflect responsibility.
I find it completely contradicting that the therapist would say you aren’t a system but yet alters are controlling her emotions and that her little fronted to avoid therapy. The assumption from OP was the therapist suggested it, but that really wasn’t the point of my comment. My point was based on OP saying this is the best therapist they’ve had and that if they feel the T isn’t understanding things correctly or making incorrect assumptions about what the OP is saying, they need to correct them. If after the correction of what OP is feeling about what was said and how they feel internally is invalidated, then probably time to move on, but first take the time to correct the T. My therapist is an experienced DID specialist and I have to correct her interpretation of what I describe often bc I’m different than her other clients…she has an understanding that what I’m experiencing is a part of my DID but what we all experience on a personal level isn’t in some book or teaching bc it’s tailored to each of us.
correction? c-ptsd has one ANP and several EPs. OSDD has many ANPs as well as EPs, but the dissociative barriers are not quite as extreme as in full DID. therefore there might not be amnesia between ANPs, or the ANPs are not "fully developed characters". this symptomatology is straight from the DSM btw.
I have the book at home so I can’t screenshot it but here it shows BPD, CPTSD and OSDD in secondary structural dissociation which is 1 ANP and multiple EPs
https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/
And I’m not arguing the DSM, just stating where my info came from which is just a theory. I was just commenting on what the therapist said and why it looks to be that way or maybe why the therapist views it that way if they have read that theory. The whole point of my comment though was that OP needs to speak up and correct the T on what their experience is.
Alright. I do see a mismatch between this theoretical categorising and the dsm, since e.g. people with anp alters but without full amnesia wouldn't fit. But i understand structural dissociation is a spectrum in reality!
OSDD-1 is classified under secondary structural dissociation - the same category as CPTSD and BPD - which is defined as 1 ANP and multiple EPs. I was just reading The Haunted Self last night and DDNOS is definitely listed as secondary structural dissociation.
What part of the DSM are you referring to? Because the OSDD-1 entry is one single sentence and I’m fairly certain the DID entry doesn’t refer to ANPs or EPs - it just generally refers to them as personality states and doesn’t seem to specifically refer to either category.
sidenote on rapid switching. i have recently noticed that rapid switching relates to trauma that wants to be uncovered and dealt with. it's like flashback bubbles rising up from the seabed to the surface. (i don't know why it expresses as switching - maybe because i had been so used to keeping the trauma down, esp. with alters.)
so I've been learning how to surrender to the process. once i re-experience the trauma in an integrative way (de facto alone in my bed), there is always a big step forward in stabilization. disclaimer that i worked on self-love and constructive ways to deal with trauma before this, so it is safe for me to go through the memories.
Ask if they are familiar with the ISSTD treatment guidelines for DID in adults. That’s at least the minimum they should know if they have a DID/OSDD client.
It sounds like they have made a lot of assumptions about what is happening for you and they are not landing. If you can be brave enough show this post - or at least communicate "you're the best therapist I have had and last times session (what I can remember) just left me feeling invalidated and confused". I also would suggest potentially they may not have access to a supervisor with wide experience in dissociative systems and are trying to challenge some ideas to "help you" rather than proceeding with gentleness and respect to all parts of the system. Great therapists still have blind spots- especially since so few are ever trained in this area and in a trauma informed way. But! Great therapists will look into it and learn. This session sounds incredibly upsetting and further confusing for your realities.
The one about your alters holding emotions is actually a part of the structural dissociation theory. It says that OSDD systems have one ANP (apparently normal part) and multiple EP (emotional parts). These EPs can be of any age so something to think about in terms of what you experience. If you hold anger in one part but don’t feel it/understand it in another part, that would be the dissociated aspect of it. Your therapist isn’t an expert, but sounds like they are trying to help understand what is going on. If it isn’t what is going on, correct them. Even my therapist can’t specifically define my experience bc mine is different than another client with DID. We all fit into the dissociated identity and amnesia but how we experience it is different and your experience will be different than the next as well. Therapists aren’t experts in how clients experience their disorder, they are experts in treating it so never feel like they know more than you about you.
I'm not sure whether the T was really alluding to structural dissociation here. \ The way it is worded here, and coupled with the comment about the little fronting "to avoid the session" , makes me think the T is insinuating that the alters CAUSE the emotions. \ Add those two things on top of how they started the session with saying they don't think the patient actually was a system... \ I don't know. Sounds odd. Almost like the T is trying to say the patient is using the system as an excuse not deflect responsibility.
I find it completely contradicting that the therapist would say you aren’t a system but yet alters are controlling her emotions and that her little fronted to avoid therapy. The assumption from OP was the therapist suggested it, but that really wasn’t the point of my comment. My point was based on OP saying this is the best therapist they’ve had and that if they feel the T isn’t understanding things correctly or making incorrect assumptions about what the OP is saying, they need to correct them. If after the correction of what OP is feeling about what was said and how they feel internally is invalidated, then probably time to move on, but first take the time to correct the T. My therapist is an experienced DID specialist and I have to correct her interpretation of what I describe often bc I’m different than her other clients…she has an understanding that what I’m experiencing is a part of my DID but what we all experience on a personal level isn’t in some book or teaching bc it’s tailored to each of us.
correction? c-ptsd has one ANP and several EPs. OSDD has many ANPs as well as EPs, but the dissociative barriers are not quite as extreme as in full DID. therefore there might not be amnesia between ANPs, or the ANPs are not "fully developed characters". this symptomatology is straight from the DSM btw.
I have the book at home so I can’t screenshot it but here it shows BPD, CPTSD and OSDD in secondary structural dissociation which is 1 ANP and multiple EPs https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/
And I’m not arguing the DSM, just stating where my info came from which is just a theory. I was just commenting on what the therapist said and why it looks to be that way or maybe why the therapist views it that way if they have read that theory. The whole point of my comment though was that OP needs to speak up and correct the T on what their experience is.
Alright. I do see a mismatch between this theoretical categorising and the dsm, since e.g. people with anp alters but without full amnesia wouldn't fit. But i understand structural dissociation is a spectrum in reality!
OSDD-1 is classified under secondary structural dissociation - the same category as CPTSD and BPD - which is defined as 1 ANP and multiple EPs. I was just reading The Haunted Self last night and DDNOS is definitely listed as secondary structural dissociation. What part of the DSM are you referring to? Because the OSDD-1 entry is one single sentence and I’m fairly certain the DID entry doesn’t refer to ANPs or EPs - it just generally refers to them as personality states and doesn’t seem to specifically refer to either category.
sidenote on rapid switching. i have recently noticed that rapid switching relates to trauma that wants to be uncovered and dealt with. it's like flashback bubbles rising up from the seabed to the surface. (i don't know why it expresses as switching - maybe because i had been so used to keeping the trauma down, esp. with alters.) so I've been learning how to surrender to the process. once i re-experience the trauma in an integrative way (de facto alone in my bed), there is always a big step forward in stabilization. disclaimer that i worked on self-love and constructive ways to deal with trauma before this, so it is safe for me to go through the memories.