What therapists often misunderstand about DID, childhood trauma, shame, attachment, and the therapeutic relationship—with psychotherapist and author Sally Maslansky.
**If you find conversations about childhood sexual abuse activating, please take care with this episode. Although our discussion doesn't contain explicit details, abuse is a central theme.**
Because hindsight is 20/20, allow me to add a bit of self-evaluation to this conversation with Sally Maslansky, LMFT, my emotionally wise and accomplished guest. Sally is a licensed psychotherapist, speaker, consultant, and author of A Brilliant Adaptation: How Dissociative Identity and the Therapeutic Bond Saved Me. Her work centers on the power of relationship, the complexity of the mind, and the possibility of healing even in the aftermath of profound childhood trauma.
Sally's life and career can serve as proof that people with dissociative identity disorder (DID) can heal. Here are three points to take away from this discussion:
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DID truly is a superior survival adaptation. It generally develops in response to attachment wounds sustained in childhood.
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Shame––not the feeling that we've done something bad but that we are bad––is a bummer! The more we can build capacity to identify the implicit or explicit shame-based lessons of our childhood, the closer we get to connecting with ourselves and each other.
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Therapists can (and should) "meet" their patients' dissociated states. With proper training and supervision, these interactions can become part of a compassionate reintegration process.
"Therapy," concludes Sally, "is a collaborative venture." I agree. It's not about needing to fix; it's about accountability and liberating ourselves from trauma.
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