Bewitched, Buried, and Bewildered

Abstract

This case study recounts the first years of an analysis that began as therapy for depression but rapidly shifted its focus to promoting coconsciousness and cooperation among personalities who were discovered to be comprising a rigidly dissociated sense of self. At first, unusual ways of experiencing the world were only hinted at, but as the treatment progressed, acute pain and confusion surfaced—both during sessions and in the events and artwork brought to them—revealing a perplexing realm in which facts could be invented accidentally and logic was a threat. As time went on, self-states were heard internally more clearly, and there was greater dialogue and engagement both among the patient's self-states and with the therapist's, enhancing self-knowledge and heightening cohesion within both parties.

Keywords:

• coconsciousness
• dissociative identity disorder (DID)
• dissociation
• multiple personality
• multiplicity
• self-states

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the many people who helped me bring this article to its present form, especially Graham Bass, Kim Bernstein, Philip Bromberg, Max Cavitch, Charles Finlon, Elizabeth Hegeman, Sheldon Itzkowitz, Steven Kuchuck, and Donnel Stern.

Notes

¹ In this anecdote, contained in a letter to Romain Rolland, Freud recounts hearing an exclamation by an interior voice, the intelligence behind which seems to hold different information than his usual self does. Freud ends his discussion, “But all of this is so obscure and has been so little mastered scientifically that I must refrain from talking about it any more to you” (Freud, 1936/1964).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maggie M. Robbins

Maggie M. Robbins, M.P.S., L.P., is an internationally shown collage and assemblage artist and the author of Suzy Zeus Gets Organized, a novel in verse. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Southwest Review, Forever Barbie, The Noonday Demon, and the anthologies Heaven and Satellite Convulsions. She is in private practice in New York City.