View Single Post
 
Old Apr 17, 2016, 09:38 PM
amandalouise's Avatar
amandalouise amandalouise is offline
Wise Elder
 
Member Since: Mar 2009
Location: 8CS / NYS / USA
Posts: 9,171
Quote:
Originally Posted by finding_my_way View Post
i have decided to try guided imagery to see if it can help improve communication with the others as the ability to now is feeling nonexistent, and things have been very difficult for me as a result. my hope is that it can help (and not make things worse) so that whoever wants to talk can talk and in return start to heal. i feel so much of their pain, fear, sadness, etc. and a mix of a lot of things and at the same time dissociate for a bit almost daily which is also seeming to change and get more severe to the point it feels like i am almost 100% gone or going to pass out or something.

it has felt like i am a hostage among it all and really is scary and confusing and causing a lot of difficulties for me.

i don't remember it like that in childhood which makes sense why i wouldn't...and i always wondered how it might have been then. now, i get it and know just how bad it was and how it did protect me.

i was wondering if anyone has used guided imagery to help with communication with their system and what it was like. did it work the first time or take a few times? did it work at all?
suggestion...you might want to check with the legal agency that over sees the laws and ethics for treatment providers in your location. here in america it is illegal and unethical for a treatment provider and client to do something like this. short version treatment providers here in america can lose their credentials if they do anything that contains the goal of calling out of alters, causing a client to dissociate on purpose with the goal of speaking with the alters. the reason behind this is because there have been many law suits against treatment providers due to a condition called false memory syndrome and treatment providers causing their clients to have mental disorders that they may not have, and causing people with dissociative problems to create false alters for the attention and expressed or unexpressed wish of the treatment provider to talk with the alters. in short here in america treatment for dissociative disorders is supposed to focus on stability, grounding and learning how to handle problems and life with out having to dissociate, regardless of whether the trigger is positive or negative treatment providers here are not suppose to enforce dissociating.

that said Im not sure what the laws\ethics \and standards for Canada (your location) which is why I suggest contacting those in your location that makes your mental health laws and ethics before you go through with this.

there are some legal, safe and commonly used ways to communicate with alters that my treatment providers and I used....

for example if I happened to dissociate during therapy which ever alter who's sense of agency was to handle what ever happened to trigger me would talk with my treatment provider....for instance if my treatment provider and I were talking about a problem I was having at work and I happened to dissociate (feel numb spaced out disconnected switched into an alter) then the alters that took care of work related problems would take control and talk with my therapist.

Journals. I kept many different styles of journals around. when ever I happened to dissociate whether I was at home, in a college class, at work, in therapy, the alters would write or draw.

toys and stuffed animals. many of my alters loved to hold and play with toys and stuffed animals. if during therapy my therapist and I were talking about something and I happened to dissociate she would ask the resulting alter if she wanted a toy \stuffed animal to hold and play with (this therapy technique is known as play therapy)

recording devices. sometimes when i dissociated i would find recordings around the house so my therapist video and audio taped my sessions. this came in handy not only for those times I dissociated. Any time I didnt remember what happened in therapy for any number of reasons all I needed to do was schedule an appointment for my therapist and I to go though the recordings.

I dont know about canada (your location) but here we do have a therapy technique called inner child therapy but its not used for talking with alters. It a therapy approach based on the fact that even normal people have times wen they feel like and respond like a child. when my therapist and I did this for my anxiety, I took in a picture of me when i was a child. then my therapist had me look at the picture and ......imagine... I was that age again, ...imagine...it was that time when the picture was taken and then ....imagine ...what i would tell that little me in the picture. then my therapist had me close my eyes and imagine doing and saying those things to the little me that I was in the picture.

another name for this therapy technique in my location is called roll playing and fantasy play, playing pretend and using ones imagination. Its also called a grounding exercise because its meant to be calming, relaxing and grounding/ non dissociative exercise. The moment dissociation enters into this where an alter takes control the activity is stopped. then when the client is back in the present moment therapist and client talk about the exercise and what in it caused the dissociation so that the problem can be worked out before doing inner child therapy technique again.

your treatment provider can tell you more about this according to your locations laws and ethics.