Different parts of myself - Thr Body Keeps the Score

[Anonymous]

I’m working through trauma from my childhood and my psychologist recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score.

I’m on p. 288 and reading about the parts work using the Internal Family System.

I feel like I have parts that hold different responsibilities and that are different ages, but I’m quite sure I don’t have Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Can parts exist on a spectrum? My head is spinning and I need someone to process this with tonight. My psychologist is out of town until Wednesday. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

100%, the approach is just a way to understand the complexity of our existence and it isn’t at all synonymous with DID. Think about how we talk sometimes: “part of me wants to work out, but part of me just wants to sit on the couch.” Or, “part of me is mad at her, but part of me understands why she did X and Y.”

[Anonymous]

Echoing PP, absolutely having "parts" does not mean you have DID. We all have parts! I found "No Bad Parts" by Richard Schwartz (founder of IFS) and Dr. Tori Olds' you tube channel (link below) really helpful in understanding IFS.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCJ2fBBavCJEoQPzbMIOuQ2luJDHrWPSL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100%, the approach is just a way to understand the complexity of our existence and it isn’t at all synonymous with DID. Think about how we talk sometimes: “part of me wants to work out, but part of me just wants to sit on the couch.” Or, “part of me is mad at her, but part of me understands why she did X and Y.”

Thank you, this is helpful.

One of my “parts” had an experience today and I am thrown off. I feel so confused. Usually, that part is buried. I don’t know what to do. I feel so scared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100%, the approach is just a way to understand the complexity of our existence and it isn’t at all synonymous with DID. Think about how we talk sometimes: “part of me wants to work out, but part of me just wants to sit on the couch.” Or, “part of me is mad at her, but part of me understands why she did X and Y.”

Thank you, this is helpful.

One of my “parts” had an experience today and I am thrown off. I feel so confused. Usually, that part is buried. I don’t know what to do. I feel so scared.

It is important to know that the popular portrayal of DID—as fully formed separate selves with things like different voices, handwriting, medical conditions, etc—is malarkey.

There is enormous controversy within psychiatry about this diagnosis, with many scholars believing that “complex PTSD”—that is, PTSD originating from multiple/persistent adverse childhood experiences—is a better way to describe much of what is attributed to “DID.”

It is not uncommon at all for someone with c-PTSD to have the experience you are describing of a buried part coming to the fore. Your therapist should be able to reassure you about this also and it’s worth a call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m working through trauma from my childhood and my psychologist recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score.

I’m on p. 288 and reading about the parts work using the Internal Family System.

I feel like I have parts that hold different responsibilities and that are different ages, but I’m quite sure I don’t have Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Can parts exist on a spectrum? My head is spinning and I need someone to process this with tonight. My psychologist is out of town until Wednesday. Ugh.

You are employing compartmentalization. It is a coping mechanism.

[Anonymous]

Is this book garbage? A bad therapist suggested it to my teenager which I think is wildly inappropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m working through trauma from my childhood and my psychologist recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score.

I’m on p. 288 and reading about the parts work using the Internal Family System.

I feel like I have parts that hold different responsibilities and that are different ages, but I’m quite sure I don’t have Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Can parts exist on a spectrum? My head is spinning and I need someone to process this with tonight. My psychologist is out of town until Wednesday. Ugh.

I do IFS work and its been very helpful to me. Like why do certain lilttle things trigger me into a tailspin yet other big thing I can handle with no issue? Why am I one person at work (super organized) but have an embarrassingly messy room at home? Those are simplified issues but exploring myself and my parts through IFS has been really eye opening and healing. There are IFS talks for free on the Insight Timer App. Here's a link:

https://insighttimer.com/meditation-playlists/LLmvymnzkRjmrZlO26uD
https://insighttimer.com/play/playlist/LLmvymnzkRjmrZlO26uD?track=m3v3u4y9y9h2v8m1p2c8e2z1g5h0f7s4r4c1x5j1

[Anonymous]

The kids movie "Inside Out" is loosely based on IFS.
https://www.bethrogerson.com/inside-out-movie-ifs/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this book garbage? A bad therapist suggested it to my teenager which I think is wildly inappropriate.

The book is excellent. Sorry your teen's therapist was trash.

Don't take it out on the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this book garbage? A bad therapist suggested it to my teenager which I think is wildly inappropriate.

The book is excellent. Sorry your teen's therapist was trash.

Don't take it out on the book.

+1

Its actually a really interesting book with a ton of science backing it up. Its a shame that many of the therapies discussed in the book were not given additional funding when the results were so great.

[Anonymous]

I did not find an IFS approach helpful.

I did benefit from Somatic Experiencing Therapy and EMDR.

I've read and am somewhat a fan of TBKTS but some of it, the MRIs, for example, have not been consistently replicated, so that undercuts a bit of the validity to me.

IFST is somewhat controversial, Google it. Take what is helpful and leave the rest.

You may wish to set the book aside until you have worked on inner resources, self soothing, compartmentalization, etc. Creating additional trauma responses is counterproductive.

[Anonymous]

I found the book useful but the science is not as solid as the book presents

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/08/02/body-keeps-score-grieving-brain-bessel-van-der-kolk-neuroscience-self-help/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this book garbage? A bad therapist suggested it to my teenager which I think is wildly inappropriate.

The book is excellent. Sorry your teen's therapist was trash.

Don't take it out on the book.

+1

Its actually a really interesting book with a ton of science backing it up. Its a shame that many of the therapies discussed in the book were not given additional funding when the results were so great.

Much of the science is actually not as the book presents it, alas...

It’s worth remembering that as we advance in our understanding, what we know about the brain — such a key part of what makes us human — will inevitably be revised, refined and sometimes proved wrong. The imaging revolution, starting with the invention of the positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and the MRI in the 1970s, seemed to bring neuroscience out of the dark ages. But the fMRI scan, which is just over 30 years old, has already had episodes
of comeuppance.

In 2009, a neuroscientist put a dead salmon through an fMRI and detected activity in its dead
brain, showing how easy it is to produce a false positive when sorting through the statistical noise of these scans. Beyond statistical dangers, there’s an even more fundamental problem of interpreting what fMRI scans depict. A scan can correctly identify the areas of a person’s brain that are receiving blood flow at a particular moment, but we can’t definitively say that activation of a brain region equals a particular emotional or cognitive state. An activated amygdala can be pointed to as proof of negative emotions like fear, stress or anxiety, but also positive ones, like happiness.

More recent reevaluation of fMRI scans taken while subjects are triggered to feel certain emotions — the kind that O’Connor and van der Kolk have deployed in their research and write about in their books — has further revealed their limitations. In 2020, Ahmad Hariri, a Duke University professor of psychology and neuroscience, led a team that conducted a reanalysis of 56 published academic studies based on fMRI analysis, and found that when an individual has their brain scanned in an fMRI, the results are not replicable on a second scan. You can have the same person conduct the same task while in an fMRI scanner a few months later and get a different readout of brain
activation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/08/02/body-keeps-score-grieving-brain-bessel-van-der-kolk-neuroscience-self-help/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this book garbage? A bad therapist suggested it to my teenager which I think is wildly inappropriate.

A book rec is wildly inappropriate? Or the therapist?