Dream Work

Sometimes for women (or men) with dissociative identity disorder there is so much emphasis on sorting out personalities and functions, that the inner life of the self is neglected. Besides the demanding task of discovering, nurturing and teaching newly discovered personalities, I like to go back to other psychological basics.

Ever since I was an undergraduate in psychology, I have loved reading the great literature of psychology. From classic case studies and the literary works of the psychoanalysts and depth psychologists I learned about the mind and it's secrets, how we can repress, suppress or simply neglect to attend to what causes us too much psychic pain.

I have come to respect the mind and personality and integrity of the self. Had I only understood early in my life that my self was actually selves -- not out of any decision of mine but as a natural consequence of the severe deprivation of nurture and comfort and appropriate limits -- had I understood that fact and had therapists or even professors understood it, how different my life would have been. Had I known I would have respectfully taken my alters to therapy with me instead of trying to hide them. Had I known I would have respected the dreams and symbols, images and metaphors of my conscious and subconscious mind and worked with them.

But the damage was too great, the trauma and deprivation too intense. So now I learn -- at fifty and not twenty-five how to work in therapy, how to trust a therapeutic relationship, how to have compassion on myselves. Now it's time to work with the dreams as well as the flashbacks, because without an internal landscape I would have no map and all and no sense of the journey. I'd like to share some dreams and let them be a language unto themselves. Julie

My Dream Journals

The Wicked Queen

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