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Rating: 
Summary: Dr. Ross updates latest information on MPD/DID.
Review: Dr. Ross covers the latest in trends in therapy and treatment modalities for Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). Dr. Ross also mounts a solid apologetic for the defense of what has continued to be a controversial diagnosis in clinical circles. Included in the book are solid therapeutic approaches and, while he does not claim to provide complete training for the novice, he does provide a very solid foundation both in his theory and practice techniques from which to have a solid basis for understanding and working with this difficult disorder.
David B. Rosenthal, M.Ed., LP
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Summary: Sane treatment of DID
Review: Dr. Ross has produced in this book a work that is brilliant, courageous, humane, practical and accessible to educated laypersons.
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Summary: A THOROUGH AND INFORMATIVE LOOK AT D.I.D.
Review: I have been in one of Dr. Colin Ross's dissociative programs (in-patient and out) and have learned a great deal. His information about DID is thorough, informative and wonderfully intriguing. And I consider myself knowledgeable about the subject (since I am a multiple myself). This book covers everything from the history of dissociation to specific aspects of DID such as alter types, symptoms, and comparisons to other commonly mistaken diagnoses. I recommend this book to doctors, mental health professionals, friends and family of multiples, multiples, people with any kind of dissociative disorder, and pretty much the public at large! This book may seem to be way too expensive, but the information you will receive goes well beyond the cost.
Rating:
Summary: Rich, thorough, and definitive
Review: I've read several books on this affliction, and this is the most comprehensive book available for therapists. Ross has many years of experience and knows the traps and detours in treating dissociative-traumatized patients. He understands the critical, child-like gap in the patient's thinking, believing that he/she was in control and thus to blame for what happened. Letting go of guilt means facing the frightening truth: the victim wasn't in control.
Dissociation arises from the conflict between the victims' attachment to their abusers and their need for survival. Above all, it embodies the need to keep secrets, even from oneself. This fact and the victim's ambivalent feelings are what make dissociative disorders different from post-traumatic stress due to public traumas such as assault, combat, and the like.
Ross is also very good at dispelling the myths you hear:
- Dissociation and dissociative identity disorder (DID) are not real or merely created by therapists.
- There's no objective evidence for DID. In fact, the evidence for DID is better than for many psychiatric conditions. And the brain physiology of traumatic stress is well-established.
- DID (or "multiple personalities") is rare. It's actually not that uncommon, perhaps a percent or so of the population. DID has been misdiagnosed and misunderstood for decades. Then add those suffering from related post-traumatic stress and borderline personality disorders.
- Alters are "separate personalities." Alters are actually distinct states, separated by amnesia barriers, of a single mind, frozen at different ages and distinct contexts by chronic, overwhelmingly stressful and traumatic experiences. They are triggered and revived by similar experiences later in life.
The name of the disorder was changed from "multiple personality" to "dissociative identity" to remove the implication that the victim is more than one person in one body. The victim's identity (memories, thoughts, and feelings continuously integrated in time into a single "I") is fragmented, not multiple.
- It has to be "Sybil" to be real. Actually, DID cases as extreme as Sybil's are rare. Most DID cases are more subtle.
- Recovered abuse memories are false. Actually, they're generally true. Therapists must carefully avoid leading questions and suggestion, however, and probing and validating memory takes time.
Such memories are not "repressed" - a false idea inspired by Freud. One part always knew and never forgot. The other part never knew and so had nothing to forget. Forgetting is not involved. The key to the memory problem is the existence of alters, not "repression" or forgetting.
- DID is demon possession. Actually, demon possession is DID.
Demon possession evolved into DID by the late 19th century and became a central concern of psychiatry, under the name of "hysteria." The distressing fact is that that psychiatry has regressed in some ways since then. All the cool psychologists circa 1900 were studying it (Breuer, Freud, Janet, James, Myers, Prince, etc.). Nietzsche alludes to "subjective multiplicity" and the fallacy of the "soul atom" in Beyond Good and Evil (1886). And let's not forget Lady MacBeth or Jekyll and Hyde.
- DID is an autohypnotic disorder. A half-truth. Dissociation/autohypnosis is a defense against abuse.
- DID is really schizophrenia. Still a common mistake, because of the popular confusion over "schizo." Doctors misunderstand because some DID symptoms superficially sound like schizophrenia. But DID is not a psychotic disorder. It does involve mood disturbances, usually depression, often anxiety, sometimes mania.
- Dissociative patients are crazy. Actually, the traumatic situations they were in were crazy. DID is how their minds cope with distressing, uncontrollable situations. The patients are basically sane and fine. That's the paradox.
- Trauma is all caused by sexual abuse, or sexual abuse of girls. Or it's a product of evil patriarchy, or some such kindergarden Marxism.
Actually, boys are probably subject to as much abuse as girls, perhaps more physical and emotional than sexual. The perpetrators are themselves often mentally ill and/or drug-addicted. Mothers often play a major and surprising role. And female DID victims are more likely to seek treatment.
- We don't hear about DID, so it can't be real. Actually, we hear about abuse all the time, less about the lives that it ruins. Few people want to know about it and try to quickly forget about it. (Therapists exhibit the same pattern as well.) The victims would like to forget too - but become dissociative instead.
Besides Ross, there are other shorter and excellent books on dissociation, DID, and multiple personality disorder.
- James Chu, Rebuilding Shattered Lives (for therapists)
- Marlene Steinberg, The Stranger in the Mirror. Explains why DID sufferers are treated endlessly for their secondary disorders, while missing the essential problem. Provides standardized criteria for dissociation: amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, and identity alteration.
Also, very interesting discussion of false memories, screen memories, and memories of satanic ritual abuse and alien abuction - why they arise and seem so real, even when they're false.
- Deborah Haddock, The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
- The books by David Pelzer (the child called "It")
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Summary: Losing One's Imagination
Review: Ross wrote a very important methodological well-thought book on the history, diagnosis and clinical features, and treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). He listed the fundamental problem of DID as the child's attachment to the perpetrator. Because there is no ways to escape, control, or predict the trauma the child becomes overwhelmed, helpless, and powerless. In order for the child to thrive he must shut down his attachment systems. To reattach the child creates stable internal persons in the form of "alters," thus, avoiding the paralysis of learned helplessness. Based on his work, Ross, "devised a scheme for understanding four different pathways by which patients arrive at DID. These are childhood abuse, childhood neglect, factitious, and iatrogenic pathways." He believes that the four pathways do not distinguish true from false cases, but rather defines them such as to the difference in their treatment. They are all real. Ross states, "The childhood abuse pathway to DID is the one treated most frequently by dissociative disorders therapists," but he targets the iatrogenic cases in the balance of his writing work. Ross states that DID is "treatable because the imagining can be unlearned, and the past confronted and mastered." Ross concludes, "To demonstrate the efficacy of a treatment, it is necessary to show that a reliable and valid disorder is being treated; that a specific treatment is being delivered; that the treatment is cost-effective and can be taught to others, and that both a general and a specific beneficial response occurs." We felt though Ross' standardization may seem appealing, we wouldn't want this kind of treatment. It would seem detrimental to lose our "imagination." Kate (Aynetal System).......
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Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: This book provides excellent, in-depth information. It is written for professionals, but provided in a format which does not alienate the intelligent layperson. It is a great resource for those who already have an understanding of dissociative identity disorder and are searching for more detail. Dr. Ross explores all areas of the disorder. The areas I found most intriguing included the descriptions of common roles of identities, responses to professionals who argue that dissociative identity disorder does not exist, and a wide variety of statistics based on solid experimental research. ...I have found it very helpful in my determination to be an active participant in my treatment. This book is well worth its price!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource
Review: This is an excellent resource for the diagnosis and treatment of dissociation. I did my clinical training with Dr. Ross and found him to be knowlegeable, accurate, and compassionate in his assessment of dissociation and it's treatment. The book is every bit as helpful and necessary to an understanding of dissociation whether you agree with the diagnosis or not.
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Summary: Excellent Resource
Review: This is an excellent resource for the diagnosis and treatment of dissociation. I did my clinical training with Dr. Ross and found him to be knowlegeable, accurate, and compassionate in his assessment of dissociation and it's treatment. The book is every bit as helpful and necessary to an understanding of dissociation whether you agree with the diagnosis or not.
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