It really annoys me. I don't think dissasociative disorders are psychotic disorders. I don't hear psychotic voices I hear the younger ones talking. I just think he thinks I've made them up and they are not real His two specialist areas are trauma and psychosis though...so maybe i am wrong.

[Claritytoo]

Have you talked with him about you concerns and about the direction your treatment is going in?

No I'm just moaning prematurely. I've only recently disclosed about the others. Thing is he is very solid...does not seem to change his views based on...anything I say.

[Claritytoo]

That might just be your first impression of him. I think you will not know his position for sure until you have a conversation with him. Therapist are trying to figure us out at the same time we are trying to figure them out. It took me a while to trust my t. This doesn't mean I always agree with her. And if I don't I let her know. But I do think she is trying to help me and is willing to listen to our varying points of view. For me very often my exchange with my t is based on who shows up for session. She is patient with us in that way.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by seradjernie

It really annoys me. I don't think dissasociative disorders are psychotic disorders. I don't hear psychotic voices I hear the younger ones talking. I just think he thinks I've made them up and they are not real His two specialist areas are trauma and psychosis though...so maybe i am wrong.

I know its hard. here in america many people with all kinds of dissociative disorders are also receiving and being treated for things other than dissociative disorders..

here in america the reason behind this is because the new diagnstic criteria for mental disorders here in america (and other countries that may also be using the new DSM 5 diagnostic criteria) the dissociative disorders now include a diagnostic criteria that states the problems can not be better explained by other mental or physical health problems/diagnosis.

this means treatment providers have to actually look at other mental and physical problems....before...they slap the dissociative disorder label on that person.

example...

I tend to get dissociative like symptoms with some medications. in the past I had the diagnosis of depersonalization when this symptom was active. Now because of the new standards of diagnosing mental disorders symptoms my treatment providers had to assess whether the dissociative symptoms were due to a dissociative disorder or because of other mental or physical health reasons (ie depression, anxiety, psychosis, medications...)

the result is that my dissociative like symptoms that are due to medications are no longer called depersonalization. its now called .....a side effect due to medication.

treatment providers who are using the DSM 5 now have to make changes in how they diagnose people. and sometimes their doing this seems fantastic, stressful, unfair and down right wrong depending on the situation.

my suggestion contact your treatment providers and ask them how and why they diagnosed you with what they have rather than diagnosing and treating you with a dissociative disorder. it may be that they are seeing the problem differently then you, and maybe theres other problems besides the dissociative ones that they need to consider too.

[innocentjoy]

That would drive me crazy as well. I saw a dr last year who told me that unless I had photos or witnesses, I couldn't say I was abused when I was young based on memories coming up and symptoms. In my mind I was like no, i can't prove it in court, I can believe anything I know to be true, whether I can prove it to someone else or not. I ended up switching drs, based on this issue and quite a few others and have been happy.
you said you hadn't brought up the issues with him, but is there anything he's said about how you tell the difference between thoughts, others' thoughts and psychosis? If he's sure it's not dissociation, he would (logically) have to have a reason behind those beliefs. If it's that he doesn't believe in alters, that would be a big issue for me...

[Switch]

Keep in mind his background is trauma and psychosis so he will always be looking at things from that lends. Wether or not it is true is irrelevant, he has a massive bias towards psychosis. Maybe tell him you think he's not treating you fairly, and that you highly doubt it's psychosis, that you think he is looking at this from too much of a bias and to please stand back and try and see it from a new perspective.

I'm going to ask him when I see him on Monday. I wonder if he would treat them differently if they were younger (My mum was very angry and unpredictable and my Dad used to mistreat me and occasionally hit me/throw me across the room, then all of the above plus sexual abuse when i was a teenager by an older man, so the others are 15/16, not 5/6/8/whatever). I think the DDNOS rather than DID diagnosis accounts for the above. I think he thinks I've just made it up because I was not sexually abused before the age of 5...which seems to be the default "reason" for DID in the literature.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by seradjernie

I'm going to ask him when I see him on Monday. I wonder if he would treat them differently if they were younger (My mum was very angry and unpredictable and my Dad used to mistreat me and occasionally hit me/throw me across the room, then all of the above plus sexual abuse when i was a teenager by an older man, so the others are 15/16, not 5/6/8/whatever). I think the DDNOS rather than DID diagnosis accounts for the above. I think he thinks I've just made it up because I was not sexually abused before the age of 5...which seems to be the default "reason" for DID in the literature.

if you were here in America age of alters does not matter, you see alters can be any age, any shape any thing and are usually based on a persons own traumas, cultures, religions what have you....what ever the person needed to survive is what the alters are at creation....

example one of my alters was an adult, another was an eagle, a bear, a deer, a lion and also children of various ages ranging from extremely young to adulthood, I even had alters that were the incarnation so to speak of the abusers, introjects, psychotic alters and even alters that were dissociated emotions, some were even just hallucinatory, delusional forms.

also you cant make the alters be what they are not (in your words..I wonder if he would treat them differently if they were younger) here in america when a treatment provider is testing/treating alters they look for a special type of alter that fits the diagnostic criteria of a DID type alter. theres alot more to having alters then how old they are, they have to contain special characteristics, jobs, purposes, reasons for being.

you can say an alters age is such and such but when encountering that alter or looking at documented history the alter leaves behind trails if you will that can prove to the treatment provider you may have made up the alters ages to be what they are not. and that will open a whole other can of worms where it leads into other mental disorder diagnosis that have the symptoms of attention seeking, hallucinations, delusional thoughts and....

bottom line I dont know how things are diagnosed and treated in the UK but my suggestion is just be yourself, take it one day at a time, continue working with your treatment providers and if this is a dissociative disorder eventually everything else will be naturally ruled out so you will eventually get the diagnosis you want or need.

on a good note it really doesnt matter what something is called and whether a treatment provider is treating dissociative disorders as something else here in America because most if not all treatment providers treat symptoms. and who knows maybe you have an alter who does have psychosis that you may not know about and whatever/how ever the treatment provider is treating you will also treat this alter. like I said I had psychotic alters well I had to be treated for psychosis in order to help that alter.

[Fuzzybear]

[possum220]

Have you ever thought about getting another opinion from a different doctor?