In my neverending quest to be a better researcher, Social Worker, writer, speaker, and general academic, I often read academic journal articles for fun and non-profit. (Yeah, I'm a nerd; that's why I am so glad to have found progressive U) Since one of my major passions in life is psychiatric Social Work service delivery and the paradigms through which we view trauma and and other "psychiatric" concerns, I focus a lot on Dissociative Identity Disorder, a dissociative disorder discussed in my post "She's 4 years old and she has a lot to teach YOU!" Recently, I read a journal article which stated that treating child alters like children is a bad idea because it doesn't foster integration and gives too much power to young alters.
Having experienced just the opposite of this idea in my experience with people with DID, I wondered just what we are supposed to treat alters like. Aliens? Pimples? Piranhas? Pariahs? Huge roadblocks to our standard cultural views of mental health? I can't see how any of this would be helpful. Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit, but the issue is a big one.
On the one hand, yes, I understand that alters are not literal children. Got that. Piece of cake, pie, or other bread product.
One the other, not treating child alters in an age-appropriate way, with vocabulary they understand, does a huge disservice to large parts of a person.
It is particularly a bad idea for incest survivors, who account for a very large percentage of people with DID.
Since the alters of incest survivors with DID carry memories of the trauma that often cannot be accessed by the "core," (the person with DID when not in an alter state) ignoring or discounting the importance of child alters can be very traumatic and actually lead to more dissociation.
Instead of pushing people not to treat alters like children in an attempt to foster less dissociation, many people with DID and their supporters believe that more emphasis should be placed on fostering communication between members of a person's inner system.
Emotionally, this tends to be less overwhelming than attempting to jolt people out of an alter state so as to avoid treating child alters like children.
Practically, it helps keep child alters away from driving, fire, and other dangerous things.
Overall it is much more respectful of the contributions child alters make to the safety and security of the "core."
So go ahead and treat child alters like kids. Just remember they aren't literal.
And that they are still not allowed to drive.
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Maybe I should come back and read this after bed. Seems like a good blog but I missed something and have yet to figure out this subscribe to post thing. I might also need to give myself background info and find that other post you spoke of.
Thanks WW,
~T
All truths are easy to understand once discovered; The point is to discover them ~Galileo
Thanks, T. I reworked one paragraph so it should be clearer now. I think I was trying to pack a bit much in there and even though it's late, it still could have been clearer. Hope it is, now.
WW
The other post is here:
http://www.progressiveu.org/030814-shes-4-years-old-and-she-has-lot-teac...
Hope it helps!