Structural Dissociation?

[Hope4Now]

It's a good differentiation to be aware of, yes. As far as I can tell, I have two EPs that want to die, maybe more. They come up in different situations. One of them feels death is the only escape from insufferable emotional pain. I think in fact I have two that feel that way. Another is a judge that wants me to die if I do something that it considers unforgivable, especially having to do with breaking loyalty to my family, even just in my mind. I'm not afraid I'll act on it (or on the other(s)), but it can be pretty rough going. Interesting now I think about it, I don't have a clear sense of this one as any particular age or related to any part of my life.

I have no idea if this helps you feel any less alone...so I'll just throw it out there. Your distinction between these parts really matched surprisingly well to soemthing I figured out on Wednesday.

I had a sort of emergency appointment with my therapist that day. In the midst of my attempts to explain the inner chaos of what is happening to me and get him to help me, I realized that I have 2-3 self-destructive parts. None of them have any particular age...they just kind of seem like me. One wants to RUN AWAY from my life...flee. One wants to die...peacefully and escape from the pain and terror and chaos. Just kind of merge with the universal consciousness physically as well as mentally (these two might be the same part, that's why I said 2-3 parts). And one wants me to suffer and die. It shows me terrible things and makes me feel terrible things in my body. It feels like I deserve to suffer. That I do not deserve to exist. It is a very scary part, but I am trying to be with it.

I'm glad that you are not afraid that you will act on what your part wants. That sort of confidence suggests that you are doing a great job being with your parts/EPs and just noticing them, learning about them. I am trying to get to this point. And it truly IS rough going. That's an understatement!

I ran off to my therapist on Wednesday because I was afraid I would act as my destructive parts wanted me to. In a moment of self, I called him (rare) and asked if he could see me. That gave me some kind of anchor/rope to hang onto for the day. It was good for me to see him in the state I was in...he helped me see a lot of things and I realize I really do need to do most of this work myself. Nobody can do it for me. They can walk the path with me, but I have to be the one to lead...

 

[Hope4Now]

Hi!
I posted a while back a link to the Center for Self-Leadership which describes the therapeutic model called Internal Family Systems that was developed by Richard Schwartz. In another conversation on the forum, I posted what Schwartz calls the qualities of the SELF-led person (see bold type below) and thought it might be interesting to post it in this thread to see what people think. I've pasted a bit from the website here to give context. Here's the link if you'd like to read the whole page: http://www.selfleadership.org/about-internal-family-systems.html

One other key aspect of the IFS Model also differentiates it from other models. This is the belief that, in addition to these parts, everyone is at their core a Self containing many crucial leadership qualities such as perspective, confidence, compassion, and acceptance. Working with hundreds of clients for more than two decades, some of whom were severely abused and show severe symptoms, has convinced me that everyone has this healthy and healing Self despite the fact that many people initially have very little access to it. When working with an individual, the goal of IFS is to differentiate this Self from the parts, thereby releasing its resources. When the individual is in the state of Self, we can work together to help the parts out of their extreme roles.
...
I was also finding that the Self wasn't just a passive witness state. In fact, it wasn't just a state of mind, but could also be an active healing presence inside and outside people. It wasn't only available during times when, in therapy or meditation, people concentrated on separating from or witnessing their thoughts and emotions. Once a person's parts learned to trust that they didn't have to protect so much and could allow the Self to lead, some degree of Self would be present for all their decisions and interactions. Even during a crisis, when a person's emotions were running high, there would be a difference because of the presence of Self energy. Instead of being overwhelmed by and blending with their emotions, Self-led people were able to hold their center, knowing that it was just a part of them that was upset now and would eventually calm down. They became the "I" in the storm.
...
The qualities of self and self-leadership include: "calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness."

When do we feel these in ourselves? How do we encourage these qualities in ourselves?

 

[shimmerz]

but could also be an active healing presence inside and outside people.

Hmmmm, this is really really great stuff Hope. I need to think on this.

everyone has this healthy and healing Self despite the fact that many people initially have very little access to it.

This is totally impressively positive stuff.

When the individual is in the state of Self, we can work together to help the parts out of their extreme roles.

So then it is a matter of identifying what the SELF is then? Am I reading that correctly?

I wonder then what the differentiation is between ANP and EP from SELF.

calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness."

So then is it a prerequisite that all of these exist in the SELF? No wonder you are looking at attaching to the SELF model the way you are rather than relying on the ANP to integrate. Is the idea then that it is only the SELF that resides in the 'healthy' person?

 

[Hope4Now]

Is the idea then that it is only the SELF that resides in the 'healthy' person?

No. The idea is that ALL people have parts. Healthy people are aware of them and lead them from a place of SELF. It doesn't mean that someone isn't sad or angry or embarrassed sometimes...just that they recognize this is a part of them...not their whole SELF. People who have been traumatized have parts that get very extreme. Sometimes so extreme that they cut off awareness that parts even exist. That's where this stuff overlays with structural dissociation theory.

So then it is a matter of identifying what the SELF is then? Am I reading that correctly?

I wonder then what the differentiation is between ANP and EP from SELF.

Yes...connecting with the SELF energy. It is what people who meditate are always trying to do. There are two kinds of self energy I think...one is like the buddhist no-self, where you feel at one with all creatures and the universe (sort of like that woman who described her experience of her right brain in My Stroke of Insight). The other kind of self energy is an embodied one...where we are grounded in our physical selves and still aware of being part of a larger whole. Here's how Schwartz describes it:

Let's continue examining this presence we call the Self. To clarify this discussion, I find it useful to differentiate between what people report while meditating -- while being reabsorbed into the ocean -- and what people are like when their Self is actively leading their everyday lives. If meditation allows immersion into a seemingly Self-less oceanic state, then the Self is a separate wave of that ocean. It is that oceanic state which seems so difficult to describe. People report feeling as if they have no boundaries, are one with the universe, and lose their identity as a separate being. This is accompanied by a sense of spaciousness in body and mind, and can be an experience of great contentment, often with moments of bliss. They often feel a pulsating energy or warmth running through their bodies and may sense a kind of light in or around them.

When you get to this state, it is an amazing feeling. Suddenly you know you are just fine as you are. It is both peaceful and energizing at the same time. I would like to live this way all the time. I suppose it is what some call nirvana.

So the first step is recognizing what it feels like in your bodymind. (That took me almost a year and a half of therapy and daily meditative practice). I finally got it around 2 months ago (around the time this thread started I think). I had been aware of an outside observer part all along. I thought that was my SELF. It wasn't. This is totally different. The second step is nurturing that SELF energy so it is present always. I'm still working on that one.

I think that a lot of people have more access to self energy than I have had. I have lived my whole life pretty much in my parts. Of course I wasn't fully conscious of that until the great meltdown and this trauma therapy. I had many moments in my life when something sort of opened up...something like this self-energy...but was immediately closed off by parts. I understand the dynamic much better now.

So then is it a prerequisite that all of these exist in the SELF?

Yes, but they don't always have to be there all the time. That would be setting the bar pretty darned high! I'm mostly working on compassion for my parts. My ANPs are very closed off to my EPs (as best as I can use this language). So I'm going at both the ANPs and the EPs from a place of SELF. I won't clutter up this thread going on and on and on about the process, but it is a very powerful one. You can PM me if you'd like to hear more, or just post here. For almost a year, I thought all this parts and self stuff was completely NUTSO. I could not believe I was actually talking to parts of myself. Visualizing them, etc. It made me feel even crazier, but I played along with the game because I had no idea what else to do to make myself better. I was sort of at the end of my options. Then something started to happen and what seemed like a silly game became quite powerful.

 

[shimmerz]

I won't clutter up this thread going on and on and on about the process, but it is a very powerful one.

It sounds like it may be helpful to some Hope. Unless it is personal do you mind posting it here? Thank you very much for your detailed response (above). You are such a great sharer.

 

[Hope4Now]

Unless it is personal do you mind posting it here?

I think you're referring to my comment that I am going at the ANPs and EPs from a place of SELF.

I think this SELF energy piece is the key differentiation between structural dissociation theory and internal family systems therapy (IFS). It's like a different way of framing it.

Structural Dissociation Theory
As I understand structural dissociation theory, the major differentiation of diagnoses has to do with how many ANPs and EPs there are.
In single-incident PTSD, when there has been no early trauma experience or exposure, a person can fragment into one ANP (their functional, everyday self) and one EP (the emotional part that is stuck in the traumatic incident and holds all the unprocessed feelings of it).

In complex-trauma, where there has been early or prolonged trauma experience/exposure, there can be different arrays of parts that can be hard to distinguish among. Some people have one ANP and two or more EPs. In a world of diagnoses, these people would be labeled as sufferers of complex-trauma (a different category of PTSD and not in the DSM-V except as PTSD of the dissociative type I think), or of Other Specified Dissociative Disorder. According to van der Hart, from what I've been able to figure out, people with OSDD can have EPs that can take over executive control. Thus, they may appear to have dissociative identity disorder, but they don't because what is taking over executive control is an EP, not an ANP.

Other people develop two or more ANPs and two or more EPs. This would be DID. Again, according to van der Hart, et. al., DID can occur when there is complex, developmental trauma very early, and then an additional major traumatic event early on (before age 4 or 5 I think). At some point in his writing, he notes a comment like: good luck figuring out the difference between a complex and powerful EP and an ANP. What marks DID is the profound phobia among parts that lead to true amnesia (not dissociative amnesia). (This distinction still confuses me). Multiple ANPs can be seen on an fMRI.

My sense is that structural dissociation theory is an attempt to frame the personality diagnostically...hence the distinction between the words "Normal" as in "Apparently Normal Personality" and "Emotional" as in "Emotional Personality." Just the vocabulary itself bifurcates emotion from normality. Structural Dissociation Theory (SD) seems to me to be an attempt to help frame diagnostic categories and criteria for mental illness. I find it enormously helpful, but also at odds with the Internal Family Systems Theory (IFS). It is focused on healing illness...you are either an integrated whole personality, or you are not, and you fall on some level of SD. IFS begins with the assumption that we all have parts--whether we do or do not have PTSD, CPTSD, OSDD, or DID. This is a very, very different approach.

Internal Family Systems Theory
IFS takes as its starting point that all human beings have something called SELF energy, as well as three categories of PARTS: managers, firefighters, and exiles. Managers seem to me to be the equivalent of ANPs in SD. Their job is to keep us functional in our daily lives. Exiles are parts that have been walled off/silenced/locked away--parts that hold traumatic experiences. To me, these parts seem equivalent to the EPs of SD. The managers' jobs are to prevent the emotional overwhelm of the exiles from breaking through and overwhelming the system. Therefore manager parts fall into the category of protector parts because their job is to protect the system--keep it safe and functional in daily life.

Unlike in SD, however, IFS includes two other aspects of the personality that don't quite fit into SD theory: firefighters and SELF. Firefighters are considered extreme protector parts because they come in when the managers get exhausted from their jobs. Firefighters are attempts to protect the system from overwhelm at any cost--they can come in many forms...dissociation, addictions, self-harm of various sorts, etc. In most approaches to psychotherapy, the goal would be to shut down the firefighters so that work to balance the managers and exiles could be underway, or to use the managers to control the firefighters so the exiles can be healed. In IFS, however, the firefighters are honored for the difficult and thankless jobs they take on. They are recognized as having good intentions for the system, even though their approach isn't particularly helpful.

IFS theory proposes that all of us have SELF energy that lies at the center of all these interacting parts...the exiles, managers, and firefighters. The approach to healing is to learn how to use the SELF energy to balance the system. The trick, especially for many of us here, is to FIND the self-energy that is buried under all the parts. To learn what it feels like to be in SELF as opposed to being in an exile part, a manager part, or a firefighter part. To access that SELF energy and be able to be with parts. Because when we can do this, we can listen to parts' needs and provide them with what they need. In SELF, we can lead parts to become aware of one another's roles in the system, help them to work together to get what they need. That is why the organization that promotes this theory and approach to psychotherapy is called the Center for Self-Leadership...because the SELF takes the lead in life rather than one or more of the parts.

 

[Sandstone]

This is me barging in the middle of your conversation to use you as a resource. Feel free to skip over this post and carry on.

I've been attempting to read along with you, but have to confess to often getting lost. Two weeks T mentioned Structural Dissociation, but I'm sceptical of any sort of Dissociative Diagnosis. At least I had some idea of the concept, thanks to your discussion.. Can any of you recommend some good texts to understand the theory better?

 

[Hope4Now]

@stenni, you're not barging in at all!

Also, it is very confusing to all of us...so no wonder you get lost!

Here is a short definition of structural dissociation of the personality from a well-done wiki:

"Exposure to multiple types of trauma over multiple developmental epochs is associated with a wide range of clinical problems including emotion dysregulation (numbness, dissociation alternating with hyperarousal and emotional flooding); behavioral dysregulation (impulsive, self-destructive and aggressive behavior); identity problems including difficulties with body image and eating disorders; disruption in meaning (e.g., feeling life has no purpose); interpersonal problems; and somatization and medical problems including chronic fatigue, heart disease and autoimmune disorders." (Bethany L Brand and Ruth A Lanius). Structural dissociation is the mechanism that brings all crucial childhood "endured" elements to culmination, ultimately resulting in the following disorders: posttraumatic stress disorder, other specified dissociative disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Borderline personality disorder is the exception in that it is not caused by structural dissociation, but some with the disorder fall victim to it.

It comes from this page: Link Removed

 

[Sandstone]

Yes, I was chugging along quite contentedly with that, and the

"emotion dysregulation (numbness, dissociation alternating with hyperarousal and emotional flooding); behavioral dysregulation (impulsive, self-destructive and aggressive behaviour)"

element made sense and was neatly explained by the concept of one ANP, one EP. It seemed to be a better and more precise formulation of "emotional flashbacks", which, identified as flashbacks, are an idea I don't warm to.

However I find the additional layers of more EPs and even of extra ANPs a bit pointless. That just seems like any other description of Dissociative conditions, and some of the comments I've come across in various places sound like people who don't have a Dissociative condition jumping up and down and trying to get one through this construct. But I suspect I'm not really understanding.

What else should I read?

 

[sun seeker]

I have yet another tangent to present here. I just posted in my diary about something that is confusing me. Basically, I'm in a situation where the boundaries between my ANP and my EPs are feeling threatened and where to fit the demands of the situation I am feeling like I need to create a new part. I don't know how to do that. The other solution would be integration - but there is no time for that. Or withdrawal, which doesn't feel like an option either.

If in SD there can be no further ANP splits, it seems like an impossible task. I'm feeling surprisingly shaky about this. There is a reason for dissociation.

I don't know if this makes any sense, and I'm not sure what I'm asking. Just trying to make sense of this situation somehow.

 

[greenleaf]

@hope for now -- as I understand the two models, IFS could be applied to anyone, but SD only to some people: those people who have parts that, due to trauma, are not integrated much at all.

I was talking to a therapist (not my own) about parts last week. She has an IFS background and immediately took what I was saying about dissociated parts and tried to relate her experience to it.

For me, it didn't really match though. It felt like she was using the word "parts" from the IFS model as a way to describe the everyday states with which many of us deal with everyday situations. Maybe these are also called "ego states"? But she was able to move smoothly between these states and was working with them pretty freely, it seemed. It was useful to her, sounds like; I don't mean to discount it.

However some traumatized folks have parts that are really more radically separated -- dissociated, I suppose, from each other. For me, some parts seem very slow and frozen, and don't really take in information well or something. EPs, I think. I have a pretty functional AP but I am finding it has some limits, "I" don't know what to do with some emotions, and cannot even put some inner contexts into words. It's taken months of effort to tease out that these are there. The SD model explains a lot for me; I did decades of therapy that never touched on some stuff because it made absolutely no cognitive sense; I think I would get scared of the EPs and squash them, having no words or concepts to describe them -- and they hold trauma, after all, so one really needs tools and support to deal with them.

From what I understand about research on unintegrated traumatic memories, there really could be a big physical difference in the brain between how such trauma-holding parts are connected to the rest of oneself, and how regularly more-or-less integrated parts are connected.

For me, what I am starting to recognize as dissociated old emotional-context parts also feel quite different from my everyday "ego state" IFS parts. I think I've done some integrating without putting that name to it over the years...

So anyhow I think IFS could also be applied to SD parts in many cases; it seems a more general model.

I personally find the SD model more useful right now since locating the EPs at all is so difficult for me, as well as comprehending their language, (and I guess I need to feel their emotions? integrate or something?) rather than figuring out their "jobs" in the "IFS" model.

 

[greenleaf]

I'm in a situation where the boundaries between my ANP and my EPs are feeling threatened and where to fit the demands of the situation I am feeling like I need to create a new part. I don't know how to do that. The other solution would be integration - but there is no time for that. Or withdrawal, which doesn't feel like an option either.

Can you try for cooperation between the ANP and EPs, as best as possible? Your ANP is very capable, and you want to protect your EPs and get through this so you can work at protecting your EPs even better, perhaps. Sometimes saying such goals out loud is oddly helpful for me! It's like, my EPs can't really hear my ANP think? Pretty bizarre I know. It makes it all feel more real for me though at a deeper level, and I feel calmer. Also however like an alien nutcase now that I've written this down. :alien: