Phase 1. The first step in treatment aims to reinforce the safety of the person with DID with a focus on more serious symptoms like self-harm or suicidal ideation. In treatment, a licensed mental health expert helps the person with DID to replace any harmful coping techniques they use with healthier options.
Psychotherapy is the primary treatment for dissociative disorders. This form of therapy, also known as talk therapy, counseling or psychosocial therapy, involves talking about your disorder and related issues with a mental health professional.
Treatment for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) often follows a practice-based psychodynamic psychotherapy approach that is conducted in three phases: symptom stabilization, trauma processing, and identity integration and rehabilitation.
Dissociative identity disorder is a mental health condition that is commonly treated with psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and schema therapy.
Therapy can help people gain control over the dissociative process and symptoms. The goal of therapy is to help integrate the different elements of identity. Therapy may be intense and difficult as it involves remembering and coping with past traumatic experiences.
Clinical Hypnosis.
Hypnosis can help clients access repressed memories, control problematic behaviors, such as self-mutilation and eating disorders, and help fuse the alters during the integration process.
There is no cure for DID. Most people will manage the disorder for the rest of their lives. But a combination of treatments can help reduce symptoms. You can learn to have more control over your behavior.
They can, but they usually do not. Typically those with dissociative identity disorder experience symptoms for six years or more before being correctly diagnosed and treated.
Five phenomena constitute the primary clinical components of dissociative psychopathology: amnesia, depersonalisation, derealisation, identity confusion, and identity alteration.
The ultimate end goals for DID treatment centers include: Final fusion: Reaching a point where the individual identifies as only one personality. Functional multiplicity: Increased quality of life while maintaining alternative personalities.
SSRIs are also commonly used to treat anxiety and are good choices for people with dissociative disorders. Benzodiazepines are typically contraindicated because they typically exacerbate dissociation.
Patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) pose ethical challenges for clinicians regarding capacity for medical decisions. If such a patient possesses various personality states with potentially different values, opinions, and preferences, this can lead to conflicting choices regarding medical treatments.
Lithium, anticonvulsants and antipsychotics are the three main types of drug which are used as mood stabilisers. There are several types of individual drug within each of these groups. Each of these individual drugs may be known by several different names, some of which we have listed in these pages.
These include carbamazepine, divalproex and lamotrigine. Gabapentin and topiramate are also anticonvulsants that may act as mood stabilizers, but they are usually given in addition to other medications.
Dissociative patients who are not appropriately treated or who attempt to treat themselves tend to get worse and DID then becomes one of the most difficult to treat psychiatric conditions. Alternate personalities (alters) do not integrate spontaneously. Untreated DID tends to leave the sufferer open to further abuse.
But with effective treatment from mental health providers who are trained in trauma and dissociation or able to receive consultation with someone trained, people with DID can and do recover. People with DID can live full and productive lives.
Dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder) is thought to be a complex psychological condition that is likely caused by many factors, including severe trauma during early childhood (usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse).
A positive trigger is something non-trauma related and is pleasant enough to cause an alter to come forward and experience happy emotions, such as a special toy, cute puppies, or a favorite ice cream flavor. A positive trigger, in some instances, can be used to bring forth an alter.
First, you need to know how to figure out if someone is dissociating. And while everyone's different, some common indications are "if their eyes glaze over, they seem 'checked out' or 'spacey,' their tone changes, they're quieter than usual, or they're staring off into space," explains Schwartz.
There are a variety of triggers that can cause switching between alters, or identities, in people with dissociative identity disorder. These can include stress, memories, strong emotions, senses, alcohol and substance use, special events, or specific situations. In some cases, the triggers are not known.