How To Be With Alters
Whether you think an alter is annoying, angry, threatening or childish, don’t ignore them. Once you recognize the context of your interaction has changed, that an alter has emerged, you can start by responding appropriately to what is happening with that alter. If the alter is in a panic, perhaps caught in a flashback from childhood, you have a choice. You can leave her to her agony or you can comfort her. If you are a spouse/SO without training as a therapist, remember that you do not need a therapist to tell you how to comfort a child. In that same way, if you understand that you are now with an alter, you can use your own compassion and love to listen deeply with empathy and to soothe with your voice.
Some physical contact, such as a gentle touch on the shoulder or offering a hand to hold may be appropriate. But beware, physical contact at the beginning, middle or end of a flashback absolutely must not be or become sexual. The risk of re-traumatization is far too great. The intimacy of genuine friendship, of genuine affection unattached to sexuality, has tremendous positive power without that risk.
[1] General considerations in talking to alters
Dissociative disorders are characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal flow of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. Dissociative symptoms have the potential to disrupt every area of psychological functioning.
Many people are unable to accept that in DID patients, there are discreet self-identifying “personalities” (often called parts or alters) in their one physical body. I use the term personalities because it fits more precisely how alters feel within a DID individual – at least in my DID patients. Despite how it affronts our conventional views, there are these alters/parts/identities within the DID system – regardless of what term we use to refer to them.
Based on our conventional logic, it is clear that the patient is a single person with one physical body, holding one passport, and is generally identified as that person. On the other hand, when the patient speaks with the therapist or their spouse/SO, she may say, “I am Jill (an alter). I have nothing to do with Jane (the host) and I don’t want to having anything to do with her.” Alters may make hostile statements about themselves, the host, or other alters. Our conventional logic of people having a unitary consciousness or personhood will not benefit anyone in an interaction with alters.
Acknowledging an alter that has emerged, reminding her that right now you are listening to her, that she is safe, and will not be judged. This is, initially, much more difficult when an angry/mistrustful alter emerges. That alter may appear to you as completely unreasonable. Try not to argue. Remain stable and understand that the unreasonableness has its roots in an unimaginable background of pain and hurt. Through your consistent genuine empathy and caring, the anger, mistrust, pain, and despair of the alters will begin to diminish in power when and as they begin to feel it is possible that you might be able to understand that she holds her own source of suffering, which may be quite distinct from the trauma of other alters or the consciousness of the host.
As a spouse/SO, you are effectively functioning as a quasi co-therapist. Listen deeply without judgment, which will engender a path to the critical sense of safety for all the alters – not just the one that has emerged but all the alters that may be quietly watching and listening in. This is a very different message than the DID individual and any alter within that DID system has likely heard before. I say quasi co-therapist because you, as a spouse/SO must not insert yourself into a hierarchical position of providing therapeutic advice to your partner. The power dynamic of having one’s spouse/SO as therapist will be too dangerous for everyone involved. But you can be kind, and actually more kind than any therapist.
Perhaps someone can suggest an alternative method for spouses/significant others but, for example, when a 4 year old alter emerges hysterically at 3 am in bed, this is the safest and most potent suggestion I can make in terms of guidance for a spouse/SO who might encounter such a situation. In fact, this was the experience of Joan’s spouse discussed in Volume 1 of Engaging Multiple Personalities: Contextual Case Histories.
