Recovery from dissociative identity disorder

Abstract

The main treatment method indicated for dissociative identity disorder (DID) is intensive psychotherapy. During the initial phase, stabilization of the patient is essential; the treatment progresses through successive crisis interventions. Short-term hospitalizations may be carried out when needed. The outcome is inversely related to age. Children, adolescents, and young adults in their early twenties respond better to treatment compared to those of older patients, who are usually adapted to their lives through their dissociative styles and cannot easily leave them. The power dynamic of the internal world of the patient is utilized as the fulcrum of the leverage for change, which should pursue the emancipation of the traumatized and already enslaved individual. DID treatment is technically done in layers. While working on the surface requires dealing with comorbidities as well as the core and accessory dissociative symptoms, addressing the main detachment in the tripartite self-system and freeing the overwhelmed internal moderator is required for an in-depth treatment. The theory and four stages of Dialectical Dynamic Therapy (DDT) have been briefly described: paradigm shift, identificatory processes, overcoming fear of loneliness, and ratification of the acquisitions. Such treatment is aimed at the subtle repair of the master-identity of the patient. This cannot simply be the result of fusions between distinct personality states but must be the result of a more thorough integration fostered by and reaching out to one’s unitary psychological self. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.