also wanted to add that yes this is the correct forum to talk about dissociative disorders. the psychotherapy forum is for talking about therapy, and therapy treatment providers ie therapy sessions, therapists, psychiatrists, problems you may be having in therapy or with your therapist, mental health treatments like DBT, CBT, grounding, what ever.....

from what I see in your post since it talks about your therapist old and new it can fit in with psychotherapy too.

one thing I go by when posting is if I'm not sure where to post I send a copy in to the moderators and they will help me decide which forum it goes in.. they will also move any posts that do not belong in one forum to another that fgits the post better so that members have a chance to get replies for their posts from the target (topic of post) audience.

since you want to talk with people who actually have DID your best bet would be here in the dissociative forum...

example I had the diagnosis of DID until all my alters integrated with me (merged, became one with me)

it is correct that here in america the documentation shows that DID is created in very young children (here in NY the demographics say under the age of 5) from extreme abuse.

the belief among the mental health community here in NY is that something like therapy does not create DID unless it is a situation where something called false memory syndrome comes into play... thats where a treatment provider causes a person to believe they were abused // have abuse memories, when they in reality were not abused by their parents, family friends or a stranger, or when the person in therapy feels like they need to have been abused or need to have abuse memories or need to have a mental disorder for the attention of the treatment provider.

here in NY there are strict laws and ethics how a treatment provider can work with someone, so that they do not cause a client to have false memory syndrome or a mental disorder they do not actually have from therapy....

example

here in NY state treatment providers must work on stability of their day to day life first before they work on things of a triggering nature (ie trauma memories)

here in NYstate a treatment provider can not focus on causing a person to dissociate into one of their alternate personalities, calling out of alters by a treatment provider is strictly forbidden. that's not to say a person with DID wont dissociate into their alters if they have DID. therapy is working on your problems you can not work on your own because on your own you avoid those problems or they are too hard for you to handle. so through just the natural nature of what therapy is a person with DID will naturally dissociate into their alters during therapy sessions.

the key here is that here in NY treatment providers all work on many different mental disorders, problems and symptoms, which means they get training on how to recognize things like whether a person has DID or not.

here what is taught in training is when you suspect a client of having a mental disorder like DID first evaluate how often the symptoms happen before you disclose what you suspect is the mental disorder, document it if needed, then after you have observed the client with out their knowing what is suspected, disclose that idea. if the client suddenly shows more symptoms rather then less or the same its highly suspicious and send the client to a psychiatrist for accurate diagnosis process. Documentation here in NY shows most people with mental disorders tend to hide their symptoms rather than present with increased symptoms after being told a potential diagnosis like DID especially if they do not like that diagnosis.

here at the crisis center the guide is that regardless of situation we have to refer the client to a psychiatrist for mental disorder diagnosis if we suspect any mental disorders are involved.

I got diagnosed with DID in my early 20's. I was in college psych courses where as part of the curriculum we had to take a psychiatric evaluation, search for a psychiatrist, take our tests with us to the intake appointment and enter treatment. this was so that those of us that go on to become treatment providers would have experienced the process first hand and would understand what our clients go through.

I entered therapy for depression/anxiety. my therapist one day disclosed to me she had conversations with what she believed to be alternate personalities and referred me to diagnostic evaluations. there are many different mental and physical health problems that cause a person to seem to have different personalities so I had to go through some mental, physical and academic testing procedures. then I was scheduled with my therapist for a session with the psychiatrist where we were given the diagnosis results including all the different scales the testing process includes....

severity (where I hit on all the scales for dissociation, depression, anxiety, ......)

validity (hesitations in answering, erasures of answers, probabilities, how truthful I was being via video and test results.....

Social, academic, physical, mental, occupational... gosh so many different scores are involved with diagnosing mental disorders and their affects on a person.. each test has their own battery of areas and mental disorders they evaluate.

then a meeting was called with all my treatment providers so that we were all on the same page with treatment options, and such.

then as I grew stronger at handling my problems each of the alters integrated with me as their job, purpose, reason for being was no longer needed.

I did not know I had DID until after I was diagnosed. I had certain symptoms but those symptoms were things that could have been any mental or physical health problems or even normal because there is a normal phase of dissociation besides the abnormal. example I sometimes heard voices but hearing voices can also b e because of things like not eating right, not getting enough sleep, stress, or any other mental or physical health problem.

I hope hearing my story has helped you to understand a bit better and again my suggestion is if you suspect you have a mental disorder contact your treatment providers and they can refer you to diagnostic procedures.