Chapter 10. To Begin With ― Psychoeducation (5)

Recently many patients who went through their treatment process share their experiences on their home pages or blogs on the internet. Although potentially quite resourceful, their experiences are not altogether applicable to others who also suffer from dissociative disorder. Their personal success story such as “I was seen by Dr. A and was given treatment B, and medication C with good result”, is of limited value, as one person responding to A, B and C does not mean that others would respond to this combination or any one of them.
Many problems encountered in clinical situations do not have one fixed remedy. For example whether traumatic experiences should be discussed directly during the sessions depends on many factors. Whether different identity should be treated as an independent person or a metaphor differs in each clinical situation. Whether “mapping” should be done or not does not have any single answer, etc. Relying on particular success story therefore is informative only to some extent.
In order to provide accurate information to the patients and their family members, clinicians can rely on books and articles that are recommended by experts. Also resourceful and reliable are home pages of authorized organization where many information for psychoeducaitonal purposes are available.
②　to communicate a diagnostic understanding
In the modern medicine, to clarify the diagnosis and communicate it to the patients appropriately is considered an integral part of the success of the treatment. This may apply to psychiatry as well. Informing patients and their family members of the diagnosis of DID can be a crucial step for the treatment, but this need to be done with care in order to avoid any misunderstanding or other deleterious effect. For some patients and their family members, learning of having DID can be quite shocking, especially if they have misconception of this condition due to erroneous rumors or sensationalistic meda coverage of high profile cases, etc.