“Different ways of being you”

• Theater Alliance
• May 24, 2014
• News
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 DAY 3

We recently spoke to Dr. Richard Chefetz, a psychotherapist and psychopharmacologist who has worked in this field since the eighties.

Rich described dissociation as a “feeling regulator” in which people can become very logical while their emotional brain is iced.  Through continual icing, DID patients lose context and may place themselves in danger.

Dr. Chefetz agrees that dissociation stems from sexual and physical abuse, but in his opinion it is emotional abuse that causes the most debilitating damage and is then compounded by the physical and sexual.

Dr. Chefetz describes the “child parts” that our first guests explained as fragments of functional ways of being that do not amount to one functional personality.  He talks about them with his patients as “different ways of being you.”

Misdiagnosis is all too common, because people living with DID may have blocked out their trauma.  Most people are told they have an a-typical bipolar disorder or are “multi-polar.”  Even now he says, some doctors do not recognize dissociative disorder as valid.

Important points to note:

Most of his patients are high functional (vice presidents of companies, lawyers, artists, etc) and highly creative.

DID occurs more frequently than schizophrenia (2-6% of adults vs 1%).

It is not taught properly in psychotherapy in general which leads to lack of understanding about treatment.  The key is   psychotherapy, not medication.

Science is only now getting behind DID.

Elliott, a cast member, asked Dr. Chefetz the same thing he asked the Sidran group, “If you asked the cast to convey one message, what would it be?”

Dissociative disorder is treatable.

There is hope.

Kindness and tenderness and love are the most important things.

-Katie Ryan, Director of Education and Outreach