I have been retired for over 15 years now. During that time, I have published the 4 Volumes of my Engaging Multiple Personalities series, and continue to post on this blog. In the last three years, I have had several encounters with my retired therapist peers. I remember one psychiatrist musing aloud saying, “Why is the word trauma used so often these days given that the so-called traumatic events were not really life-threatening.”

Given that trauma is defined as stress that threatens to overwhelm an individual’s ego defenses, how much ego defense does a child actually have at from birth to age 5 – a time frame that is usually considered when evaluating early childhood trauma. For that matter, what capacity is developed for ego defense at age 6 or more year by year?

In another social setting, a psychologist casually lamented that the trauma concept had been over-emphasized, saying “Everything seems to be related to trauma these days.” I was about to say something along the lines of “Maybe we (therapists – psychiatrists and psychologists) are finally coming to see the central position of trauma in our work” but instead had to bite my tongue to avoid starting a no-win argument which would have destroyed the social gathering (unrelated to our work as therapists) of old retired peers.

I am afraid that in my late eighties, I don’t have the energy to fight their ignorance. I feel my limited energy is better spent writing books and blog posts for the DID community that might be of benefit to them.

Therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists need better education, an education that includes an accurate acknowledgment of the impact of trauma – particularly early childhood trauma. I have given copies of my books to my peers as well as to younger psychiatrists who are in clinical practice. The unfortunate result is that they don’t even read them.

When I first published Volume 1, I had hopes that the community of psychiatrists, local, national and international would look at the current and past patients with a far higher index of suspicion to include trauma when evaluating patients for diagnoses. What I learned, painfully over these last 10 years since publishing Volume 1, is that most psychiatrists and psychologists continue to dismiss DID, to dismiss early childhood trauma, and simply prescribe medication to treat symptoms alone, like depression.

I have written repeatedly that “treatment resistant depression” is a label of nonsense. All it really means is that the medication is not alleviating depression. It boggles my mind that the use of that label permits therapists who so wish to not even explore the possibility of unresolved early childhood trauma or traumatic current situations that may very well be the reason for depression and dispair.

I remember a patient with two toddlers stuck in an abusive marriage who was labelled as having treatment resistant depression. No psychiatrist, psychologist or family doctor she encountered ever acknowledged her psycho-social issues, her abusive family of origin, her church community that insisted she was obligated to remain in her abusive marriage. The result, when she did not respond to antidepressant medication, was that she repeatedly was in hospital for suicide attempts.

If someone had a symptom that didn’t respond to treatment, a competent doctor would re-evaluate the patient to see what else might cause such a symptom that perhaps had been missed in the initial diagnosis. In psychiatry, and particular with respect to diagnoses that are treatable with psycho-active medication, common sense is sometimes shockingly absent. By using the label “treatment resistant depression”, some mental health professionals simply absolve themselves of medical, moral and human responsibility for potential failures in diagnostic evaluation.

Over these past 10 years, it has been clear that at least some DID patients have benefited from the books and posts. I know from correspondence that they have used some of the material to clarify to their own therapists many of the issues they need to have addressed and healed. Some therapists, a small number of psychiatrists and psychologists have read the material and wrote to let me know they are using the material in their own clinical practice.

Originally, I saw these are as wonderful but small victories in bringing awareness of trauma and DID to the communities of abused individuals. Wonderful is the accurate word to describe my feelings when I learn that the material has been helpful. I called those victories small because I had hoped that the larger therapeutic community would examine, explore and use the material to benefit their patients.

But calling those victories small was inaccurate. The fact that the material has and has had a positive impact on even one individual is great, not small.

I now believe that each victory of DID awareness is wonderful, great and cumulative within the community. And it is through the efforts of those in the DID community that those cumulative victories will benefit more and more people.