Trying to Keep It Real: My Experience in Developing Clinical Approaches to the Treatment of DID

In contrast to those who have attempted to accommodate DID and its treatment within extant paradigms, extend extant paradigms to encompass DID, infer treatment approaches from theoretical models and research in areas thought capable of offering relevant perspectives, and promote particular treatment techniques as complete psychotherapies, I have endeavored to develop methods of treatment derived from the study of DID itself and the monitoring of ongoing DID psychotherapies. The result, a flexible and pragmatic therapeutic stance, has demonstrated considerable effectiveness. Here I trace and explain the evolution of selected aspects of my thinking and describe some of the strategies and tactics that have emerged from that effort. I illustrate my ongoing learning process by discussing how my study of two new potential strategies convinced me to adopt one as an elective modification of my practice and to reject the second.