Recently, I posted a two-part piece on the importance of cultivating and training therapists in empathy. I am confident that if a therapist has empathy, or even the seeds of empathy, that quality can be nourished, enhanced and cultivated which will necessarily increase their capabilities as a therapist. The distinction was made between sympathy and empathy in that piece, identifying them with compassion as critical components in therapy.
An equally important question for DID individuals is that if empathy can be taught among therapist-trainees, can we engender and help cultivate empathy in alters? In my experience, it is definitely possible and can be vital in DID therapy. Let’s examine the possibility of suggesting to patients (and to others with DID) that alters can begin to connect with other alters inside in ways that are both kind and safe.
In practice, encouraging connections among alters needs to be done slowly, gently and over time. Remember, empathy requires the ability to place oneself in the position of the other. Alters are, very correctly, scared of this. After all, it was early childhood trauma on an ongoing basis that is the general origin of DID. For an alter to fully experience and express empathy for another traumatized alter is extremely difficult. Why? Because the system actually does know how terrible the trauma was – it is not just projection and guesswork as it may be for a therapist.
Many alters are frightened of other alters, in particular those that act out internally and externally in extreme ways. They are often frightened of the intensity of the trauma other alters hold. After all, protecting the system’s parts is the reason the dissociative response often produces amnestic barriers. So, disturbing the protection established very early on with the amnestic barriers is something to be done only with the agreement of the alters, which can be gently invited but never demanded.
Some alters are dismissive of other alters, denigrating them for a perceived weakness. Some alters are angry so as to keep their armor up and attuned to potential attack. It is important when you see the myriad of presentations inside a system, even your own, to know that it is not necessary to try to speak to each and every alter about the importance of empathy.
The fact is that beginning a connection between one alter with just one other can have a fundamentally powerful impact on the relationships among all the alters. Why? Because it demonstrates the possibility of safe interaction. It demonstrates the power of simple warmth along with the ability and benefit of gently dissolving some of the amnestic barriers.
Imagine a radiator. It will have a scary quality if your first experience of a radiator is burning yourself on its hot surface. You might never get close to a radiator again out of fear. But, if you are cold, and someone shows you that staying 5 feet away from the radiator will make you feel a little warmer but not too much warmer, you can learn that the radiator isn’t always dangerous at that distance. Then, you can stay 3 feet away and see how much warmth you experience there. When it gets a little too warm, say at 1 foot away, then you have learned the boundary of safety in terms of that particular radiator.
The warm connection of empathy inside can be the same for the alter that is frightened to connect to another. That is true on both sides, the alter considering extending warmth – who may not want to get too close to the trauma material of another alter – as well as the alter considering accepting warmth – who may not want to get too close to another for fear of betrayal or of retraumatization if they open up even a little bit. Encourage the alters to express and to feel the warmth a little at a time, like being 5 feet away from the radiator, or even 10 feet. It is the intention, the aspiration to connect, which opens the gate of and to support.
Don’t suggest that any alter truly try to take on the trauma of another, or to go deep into their imagination of the trauma material held by another. The system knows what is and has gone on, even if individual alters only hold a piece of the memory. Just as with the approach I took with my patients, it is never necessary to pry into the trauma material, just be available to listen to and for what an alter might present. That is enough for empathy inside.
Pushing further increases the risk of retraumatization. So, go safely, small step by small step, while asking the protectors to watch over the process to ensure if doesn’t go too fast. Even inside, the 5% Rule is a key protective mechanism to remember. https://www.engagingmultiples.com/the-5-rule/
Many alters hold specific traumas or parts of trauma, and have done so since the trauma occurred. In so many ways that is their identity, their reason to exist. The trauma they hold was affixed to them in a dissociative experience, one that no doubt terrified the system. This resulted in the arising of that alter and perhaps others.
While memories may be walled off internally between alters, many alters know of the others, or at least some of the others. Many alters know which alters they want to stay far away from and which ones they might be willing to connect a bit closer to. You can start with encouraging an alter to simply be there to listen to another alter who may be crying, who may need the experience of a kind word inside, who may simply need the experience of not being alone. You are not trying to have one alter fix another, just to confirm a connection – like catching someone’s eye across the room and nodding to them. That connection can be a balm which sets healing in motion.
In my experience, once alters start helping one another, the rate of healing is tremendously accelerated. Encouraging an alter to explore the possibility of helping has to come very slowly and very skillfully, a subtly suggested invitation. The initial response is usually a big NO. Why? Because to suggest that alters help each other goes against the foundation of dissociation. It goes against the amnestic barriers that arose originally for protection and to minimize pain.
Even just the idea that there are alters inside that will befriend or at least listen to another alter – that will listen to that sadness, anger, whatever – is extraordinarily powerful. It establishes the sense, correctly, that there is the possibility of comfort and even help 24/7 – right there within the system. It can become one of the pillars that allows for co-consciousness and for eliminating the sharp edges of internal conflict. This is self-empowerment.
