If communication among identities is promoted with a help of clinicians in these situations, it would certainly improve the patient’s quality of life. Clinicians can use every measure conceivable to achieve this goal. Recently, digital voice recorders can be very convenient in facilitating communication among identities. With the permission of an identity, voice is recorded and is played back in the presence of other identities. Some of them might develop interest and curiosity about other identities once they actually hear them talk. However, for some identities, listening to other identities’ voice can be very disturbing or even traumatizing. Therefore the assistance of clinicians is preferred at least initial part of such an attempt.
Communication between identities can be facilitated by the clinician’s simply being more aware of “who am I talking to”. When I see some of my DID patients, I ask which identity I am talking to at the beginning of each session and see how much that identity is aware of the previous session. If I realize that an identity different from the previous session shows up, I might fill in with the summary of the last session and start from there. In this process I might recognize the presence of newly formed identities more timely.
Doing “Mapping”
Mapping is a way for a DID patient to explore the presence and profiles of other identities. Origin of this name “mapping” is that a patient was given a large paper and was instructed to put the name of the host personality in the center, and then put other identities’ name around and indicate their relationship with each other, like drawing a map. The treatment of DID was already initiated by Morton Prince a century ago, and a similar method was already in use.
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