May 1, 2012
Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Integration - yes or no, Internal Communication, mental health tagged Blended layers, Blending, Building Trust, Category for Integration, Dark insiders, DID / MPD, Discussing Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Walls, Genuine relationships, Healing, Healing Process, In my opinion, Integration, Internal Communication, Internal splitting, Internal Worlds, is integration necessary?, Kathy Broady, lures into darkness, Safety, Singleton, Splits, Talking Together, Talking with your insiders, Team work, Treatment Goals, Treatment Goals for DID at 2:39 am by Kathy Broady
Hello Everyone,
I hope you are doing well today.
This will be a short post, but I made an important update to the Discussing Dissociation blog and wanted to be sure that you all knew about it.
I have been asked repeatedly about my views on integration. I’ve written posts and comments about this topic, but unfortunately, I didn’t create a “category” for these posts. So now, with the 170+ articles on this blog, these posts and comments are difficult to find. Of course! This means it’s time to simplify this topic search for everyone, and to make it simpler for the Discussing Dissociation readers to find these blog articles.
If you look on the right side of this page, scroll down until you see the Categories drop-down box. I’ve added the category “Integration – yes or no” to this feature.
This drop-box will link you to here.
I’m assuming, in all my many blatherings on this blog that I’ve made more comments about integration than just what is written in these two blog articles. However, this link is a good start. If anyone finds comments about integration in other articles, please let me know, so I can be sure to add that article to the category list as well.
In case you don’t have time to read the other articles at the moment, I’ll give you a quick summary of what I think about integration right here in this post.
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Quick Thoughts about Integration – Kathy Broady’s Opinions:
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Is integration necessary?
Absolutely not.
Is integration beneficial?
I doubt it.
Is integration the ultimate peak / proof of healing for dissociative trauma survivors?
Not at all.
Does integration need to be your treatment goal?
Not unless you say so. I wouldn’t ever ever make it a treatment goal for any of my clients.
If integration is not the treatment goal, what is?
Team work. Lowering the dissociative walls between internal people. Internal communication. Talking together. Not hiding information from each other. Building trust and genuine relationships within your system. Learning to genuinely love and care for each other.
Do you, Kathy, think that integration is possible?
Honestly? Not really. Not complete and “total” integration. I have not yet met anyone who integrated in such a way that they stayed integrated permanently for the rest of their life. I have not even met anyone that I would say has been integrated successfully for years of time. I have heard the stories of many such claims, and met some of these people, but in my opinion, none of the “integrated” people that I have ever talked with were able to literally demonstrate true integration. They were still very multiple in oh so many ways.
I’m not convinced that a person who has lived most of their entire life as a multiple can literally change their brain in such ways to become a singleton. Besides, what would be the point anyway?
Do you think that blending is possible?
Yes, absolutely. To me, blending and coming closely connected together in a co-conscious ways are very different from integration. Blending does not imply a complete union of absolutely everyone. It is perfectly natural, normal, and healthy for some of the splits to become more blended together, especially those parts that are already very close to each other. If their blending happens naturally, that is great. You cannot force blending to happen, and it doesn’t happen instantly. It is a very gradual process that happens over years of excellent therapy, healing work, and genuine external safety. If there is any kind of “forcing” or demanded blending under duress or coercion or deception, you can bet that those insiders will step back and separate again in the not so distant future.
Do you think that integration keeps you safe?
Ummmm…. No. In fact, I think that claims of integration can lead to the very opposite of safety. Why? Because I think that real and genuine integration so very rarely happens (if ever), that when someone begins to believe that they are integrated, this is the beginning of some really dangerous times. This typically means, in my experience, that some of the top layers of the system may have blended together, and/or learned how to work well together, but the darker under-layers of the system have hidden behind very thick dissociative walls. This is extremely dangerous because the dark parts are able to function without being noticed, and the top layers of the system are too busy being proud or protective of their integration and/or completely absorbed in their outside lives that they don’t notice the dark rumblings behind the wall.
Do you think that integrated multiples are safe leaders for other dissociative survivors?
No. Not that I have seen. In my opinion, it is much more likely that the alleged “integrated multiple” has very neatly hidden or shoved away their dark sides, even if they do not realize this. All the claims in the world of being integrated do not actually make someone integrated.
In fact, following the leadership of someone who alleges to be an “integrated multiple” can be extremely dangerous for others, especially for those who are newer in their healing process. You would be safer to run 100 miles in the other direction than to assume that an integrated multiple is “automatically” a safe person.
I know many of you will not like these statements, and it is ok if you disagree. I am not meaning to offend you. We each have our own opinion and our own experiences in life. Let me repeat this, because it is so very important. In my years of experience, “integrated multiples” have more often than not been used as lures, and in reality, they are people who have not completed HUGE areas of work, and they are not automatically “safe” people. Going further into this topic is an entirely different blog post, but in my opinion, there is a whole whopping lot of danger in this area. PLEASE be careful when you meet an “integrated multiple”.
I am very aware that there are many multiples who have had spiritually-based integrations. That is yet another complicated topic, to be discussed at another time.
Ok – this was going to be short (and of course, it’s not short!!), so I’ll stop at this point. I can feel the waters already getting stirred out there. Ah well. What is life without controversy, yes?
IF I thought integration was a great thing, I would certainly say so. I just haven’t seen it as such.
What about you?
Do you have any comments about integration?
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2012 Kathy Broady and Discussing Dissociation
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December 18, 2008
Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Integration - yes or no, mental health, therapy, Therapy and Counseling tagged Abuse, Amnesia, Amnesiac Wall, Blending, Breaking Apart, Bridge, Bridging the Gap, Communication, Connecting, Cooperate, Cooperation, Deny, Denying, DID / MPD, DID Therapy, Different Selves, Discussing Dissociation, dissociate, Dissociation, dissociative, Dissociative Client, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Split, Dissociative Wall, Failed Integration, Forcing Integration, Harm, Heal, Healing, Insiders, Integrate, Integrating, Integration, Internal, Internal Group, Internal Selves, Kathy Broady, Mental Health Professional, Peace, People Inside, Process, Reality, Satisfaction, Selves, Separate, Separate Self, Separate Selves, Separateness, Separating, split, splitting, System, System Blending, System Cooperation, System Work, Teamwork, therapy, Therapy Work, Trauma, trauma therapist, treatment for DID, Treatment Goal at 4:07 pm by Kathy Broady
I am well aware that many trauma therapists are highly supportive of the treatment goal to integrate dissociative selves.
I have a different approach to this topic. Please understand I am not at all opposed to the idea of integration if that is what the person wants. However, that is a very complicated topic, and I’ll discuss the integration issue from that perspective at another time.
In my experience, by far, most dissociative trauma survivors and their systems have been opposed to the idea of integration. They like themselves as they are, and they don’t want to lose the various individual parts / people from inside. The concept of integration feels more like killing each other off, or losing unique characters, real people, and best friends. While integration may be the favored ultimate treatment goal of mainstream mental health professionals, it is not necessarily the favored option of the dissociative trauma survivors.
For that matter, I’m not even convinced that true integration is literally or physiologically or psychologically possible. When one person’s mind-self-body gets pushed to the point of separating and breaking apart into entirely different selves, with entirely different lives, preferences, interests, knowings, time awareness, relationships, friends, hobbies, memories, realities, likes, dislikes, etc. and that distinct plurality solidifies as extremely different people for 20-30-40-50+ years, can it ever really be as if it didn’t happen? Once that distinct separateness occurs, is it really possible to make that group of folks back into “one” person?
I’m not convinced there is a need, or even a benefit to trying to do this.
I do believe that creating teamwork, cooperation and communication between the different selves, and lowering and removing the dissociative amnesiac walls is critically important. I can’t stress how important that is. But developing these internal communication, self-bonding skills is entirely different than integrating these unique selves into one single solitary person.
Developing a highly successful internal group approach is hard, intense work. It takes a very long time to achieve that goal. The good news is that a dissociative person can actually function incredibly well as separate selves.
So why is there any need to remove or eliminate this amazing talent and ability? Why would someone want to try to become somebody else when they can successfully cooperate with their selves as they know them and stay who they are?
If a person does not want to integrate, I do not believe that genuine integration can be forced or “made to happen”. Instead, I think that forcing the integration issue actually causes the creation of new dissociative walls, which means greater separation, not integration. Internal parts can be forced to hide from the others inside, giving the appearance of integration without an actual integration being achieved. This is not good!! This is the very opposite to helpful healing. It creates an emotional time-bomb just waiting to explode.
Forcing an appearance of premature integration sets up a horrible dynamic within the dissociative person. All too often the person is rushed into this conclusion when there hasn’t been sufficient time for the parts involved to heal properly. They are not finished telling their life experiences, or expressing their feelings, or developing connections with the other inner selves, or challenging their own abuse-related approaches to life. It happens too fast — and the therapy healing work is just not done. So that is not ok. The “integrated” but still dissociative person is left with a huge overwhelming sense of failure if — and when — the parts need to reemerge and finish their healing work.
Healing takes as long as it takes, and the point of therapy is to provide that healing, not to cut it off at the pass. Attempting to rush or force the idea of integration causes, in my opinion, great and significant harm to the dissociative client. It is a huge set-back.
I believe that any kind of system blending and system cooperation takes a very long time. It is a slow process. The reasons for the dissociative splits in the first place are huge and fundamental. Pretending these splits haven’t happened is like denying the reality of a person’s life and all the conflicting things that have happened along the way. Bridging the gap between the splits requires huge pieces of therapy work.
My recommendation is to throw that nasty i-word away. Don’t even go there. Instead, use your time and energy to focus on getting to know your people and becoming really good friends with them – with ALL of them, including the insiders that you are afraid of or angry with. Focus on building the connecting bridges instead of smushing and smashing people into each other. As you develop your internal relationships, you will find a great sense of inner peace and satisfaction.
You’ve got good people in there. Keep them!!!
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