I have not been diagnosed with DDNOS, but think that may be what i have. My t and I have done some parts work but my experience is that the adult side of myself usually becomes overwhelmed with the pain from other parts and i can't tolerate it. It usually leads to getting stuck in the pain and not being able to escape or feel any relief. For awhile, my t worked to try to get my adult self to rescue and soothe the hurting child parts of self that would get engulfed in pain during trauma work, but this did not work for me. i was not able to have the adult self present at the same time in order to do it. Therefore, trauma work always led to child parts feeling like they'd been retraumatized again with no one to rescue them. I couldn't rescue them, and my t didn't feel comfortable intervening in a physical way to bring them an awareness of safety and comfort either. So it was a bad, bad experience nearly every time.

Lately, when my t has done parts work with me, she has specifically asked parts to be present, but not to blend with the self. This has actually worked pretty well for me, in that it enables me to keep my composure and stay in my adult mind, so the pain from other parts doesn't flood into my awareness. But what I'm wondering is, is it best to keep parts separate then, and not to have the goal of integration? Does it sound like my t's goal will be not to try to merge the parts of self together?