I was recommended this book by a friend, and I'm sorry that I didn't discover it much sooner. Unlike many books about psychology, Martha Stout dispenses with the intellectual jargon and presents the key concepts in clear, concise layman's terms, using many practical examples and scenarios that demonstrate the multiple forms that dissociation and dissociative identity disorder (DID) can take. While some of the composite case studies (created to preserve the privacy of her patients) seem somewhat sensationalist at face value (weeks of "missing time", multiple personality "switchers" etc), they do highlight the very real and documented symptoms that some sufferers of DID experience, as well as the traumatic experiences that create the condition.
Stout very clearly indicates that while the more extreme cases are less common, there are multiple levels to DID which can result in virtually invisible patterns of behaviour that can co-exist with a more or less "normal" life. She explains how aberrant and out-of-character dissociative actions are rationalised with labels like "absent-minded Professor" which enable both the sufferer and the people in their lives to ignore the problem, resulting in a tragic waste of potential and needless degree of confusion and heartache - especially where spouses and children are concerned. In reading about these various levels of dissociation - daydreaming, habitual, intrusion, "switching", demifuge, fuge etc - I was able to immediately identify certain mild dissociative states that have perpetually recurred in my own life. It also seemed quite obvious to me that dissociative states are epidemic in Western society - something that Stout makes brief commentary upon in the closing chapters of the book.
Stout also places a very healthy emphasis on personal responsibility being the deciding factor in recovery from the various DID states. She points out that people who value safety and self-protection above all other concerns have a higher probability of treatment failure, and that a conscientious and competent therapist will always seek to nurture that part of a person's essential self rather than enabling them to perpetuate a "victim mentality". I think this is good advice for those considering psychotherapy and evaluating a therapist, as unfortunately it seems that the psychiatric professions are replete with "sinners", as well as "saints". Let the patient (not just the "buyer"), beware!
For those who consider the idea of therapy too daunting, Stout also recommends various techniques that can be helpful, especially in combating mild and habitual dissociative states. Writing a journal and practicing certain types of meditation are two examples she gives of methods that can be applied by people in their daily lives to help them begin to struggle with the self-defeating effects of dissociation.
With warm compassion and occasional gentle wit, Stout has written a book that in my opinion is one of the missing "textbooks" about human life that people should be given as early as possible in the educational system. I see one of the key problems facing humanity in this day and age as being the lack of adequate psychological knowledge, and that addressing this issue could have beneficial flow-on effects in ways that we cannot begin to conceive of. Perhaps one day we could then claim a place in the universe as an ethically, and not just technologically, advanced species of being.
True Sanity, and not a "myth of sanity" could help us get there. I feel it appropriate to thank Martha Stout for helping point out the way.
Stout very clearly indicates that while the more extreme cases are less common, there are multiple levels to DID which can result in virtually invisible patterns of behaviour that can co-exist with a more or less "normal" life. She explains how aberrant and out-of-character dissociative actions are rationalised with labels like "absent-minded Professor" which enable both the sufferer and the people in their lives to ignore the problem, resulting in a tragic waste of potential and needless degree of confusion and heartache - especially where spouses and children are concerned. In reading about these various levels of dissociation - daydreaming, habitual, intrusion, "switching", demifuge, fuge etc - I was able to immediately identify certain mild dissociative states that have perpetually recurred in my own life. It also seemed quite obvious to me that dissociative states are epidemic in Western society - something that Stout makes brief commentary upon in the closing chapters of the book.
Stout also places a very healthy emphasis on personal responsibility being the deciding factor in recovery from the various DID states. She points out that people who value safety and self-protection above all other concerns have a higher probability of treatment failure, and that a conscientious and competent therapist will always seek to nurture that part of a person's essential self rather than enabling them to perpetuate a "victim mentality". I think this is good advice for those considering psychotherapy and evaluating a therapist, as unfortunately it seems that the psychiatric professions are replete with "sinners", as well as "saints". Let the patient (not just the "buyer"), beware!
For those who consider the idea of therapy too daunting, Stout also recommends various techniques that can be helpful, especially in combating mild and habitual dissociative states. Writing a journal and practicing certain types of meditation are two examples she gives of methods that can be applied by people in their daily lives to help them begin to struggle with the self-defeating effects of dissociation.
With warm compassion and occasional gentle wit, Stout has written a book that in my opinion is one of the missing "textbooks" about human life that people should be given as early as possible in the educational system. I see one of the key problems facing humanity in this day and age as being the lack of adequate psychological knowledge, and that addressing this issue could have beneficial flow-on effects in ways that we cannot begin to conceive of. Perhaps one day we could then claim a place in the universe as an ethically, and not just technologically, advanced species of being.
True Sanity, and not a "myth of sanity" could help us get there. I feel it appropriate to thank Martha Stout for helping point out the way.
