Chapter 5. Further Discussions on the “Relational stress” (11)

Ms.A has been aware of the voices that she hears since her childhood, without knowing where it was from. In her high school days she occasionally had panic attacks and missed classes. After she graduated from a college, she started to work as a clerk for a company, where she was verbally harassed by one of her bosses. Initially she would put up with it, but as the harassment escalated, she began to show some signs of dissociation. She often became dazed and lost time during her work, which became a major disturbance for her job performance.
Around that time, she began to date, and quite often she demonstrated child-like behaviors when she was with her boyfriend. She would also call ambulance when she was alone in her apartment. As it became more and more difficult for to live on her own, Ms.A finally quit her job and moved back to her parents. They got very surprised to see her daughter behave very uncharacteristically and took her to a psychiatric clinic.
She was diagnosed with the “dissociative disorder” which she heard for the first time. Her mother asked the psychiatrist more about the condition, but he replied that he is not a specialist and he cannot treat Ms.A. She was then introduced to my clinic.
When I saw Ms.A, she was suited up and very polite, but never showed a smile. As the interview went forward and when I asked some questions that she appeared to have difficulty answering, a small child personality C popped out and struggled to answer my questions.