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Summary: A Breath Of Fresh Air
Comment: I found this to be an excellent book. It isn't extreme and doesn't attempt to sensationalize the topic. The story tells itself through the true life experiences of the women. This book offers a breath of fresh air to the subject of DID. The diagnosis is often misunderstood however this is written in such a way as to help most readers have a better understanding of what people with DID go through and how the mind is so wonderful in protecting itself and its host.
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Summary: Finally a book I could relate to...
Comment: During the many years of my therapeutic relationshipship with my psychiatrist,Dr. Baer, I never read any books on MPD/DID. I tried to, but couldn't. I was afraid and felt too overwhelmed with anxiety. At the time,I decided reading about my disorder wasn't in "my/our" best interest. Then, after my story came out this past October 2007, in the book "Switching Time" by my psychiatrist, author, Richard Baer, I became interested in learning more. This year, for the first time, I read three books regarding MPD/DID. However, not one of the three books read left me with any kind of understanding. I still felt alone and wishing to learn more.
When I noticed "I Am More Than One" was partnered with "Switching Time" I ordered it just to read, hoping it would help me understand more. I am so glad I did! I found your book to be right on target with some of my own personal experiences. I wish I could've read this book many years ago, while in therapy. Maybe, I wouldn't have felt like the only woman who had such experiences with "alter help and alter chaos". I would've liked to have met the woman who were brave enough to share their stories in this book. I thank them.
There were some days in which I wondered if anyone else had similar experiences to mine. During my therapeutic years, I wish I would've known someone, just one other person, who could've understood me, explain what was happening to me and identify with me... other than Dr. Baer. I chose to integrate all of my seventeen "alter parts" and don't regret doing so. For me, this was best. I am doing well; as one "whole" woman with a variety of interests. After reading the stories of the seven woman in your book I came to a better understanding of myself.
Thank you for writing this book about what happens to someone with MPD/DID. "I Am More Than One" is well worth reading. I believe this book will continue to help others in understanding MPD/DID. I wish you all the best.
Karen Overhill of "Switching Time"
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Summary: "New Wave" book on DID
Comment: Books on DID seem to fall into several categories. "My Particularly Strange Life with DID" is one sort, and "One Therapist's Harrowing and Slightly Creepy Experience with a DID Client" is another. Both these sorts of books, while educational, tend to stress the more sensationalistic aspects of DID. If this is the sort of book you are looking for, this is likely *not* the book for you.
Instead our author investigates the concept that people with DID can indeed lead functional lives in the world and in the professional workplace, and shows us how, often with the invaluable assistance of their alters, they go about dong so. As a result of this mission, she mindfully foregoes the gory details of the childhood abuse that other books often stress, and instead concentrates on how, with the help of their inners, her professionally successful interviewees manage to make their way through the world in the here and now.
One thing worth noting : The folks in this book have all had extensive therapy and as a result have come a long long way down the path toward resolving the issues that brough about their DID in the first place. As a result, it would not be fair to say that this book presents an accurate overview of the situation that all people with DID find themselves in. Many people have not come as far as those in this book, and are still in the midst of their struggles.
However, through illustrating how such people can indeed live healthy professional lives through developing a cooperative ability to live in harmony with their inner families, this book places itself squarely in the middle of a developing "New Wave" of thinking on the subject of multiple personalities. A new mode of thinking that is begining to frame alter personalities in a considerably more positive light than in the past, and as worthy personal resources that, given the choice, many people with DID would not choose to do without.
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Summary: An honest and respectful view of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Comment: In her new book, I Am More Than One, Jane Hyman takes on and succeeds at a difficult task, one which few authors manage to accomplish: communicating to her readers the deep respect with which she holds the women she interviews, even though their experiences are so foreign to her. It is clear from the beginning that Jane wants us to understand these women's experiences from their own perspectives, without denying the clinical descriptions of their illness. The stories in this book are riveting; the women are sharply and almost affectionately drawn, but as much as possible Jane "gets out of the way" of her subjects. Most chapters focus on a theme such as work, family, or relationships, but my favorite is a chapter that plunges us into the life of one woman in her own words, without an attempt to relate her to the others in the book.
This book has much in common with others Jane has written. Each treats its subjects with the same repect and sincere desire to understand -- and to pass that understanding on to the reader. They are not meant to be self-help books; rather she leaves the reader to interpret the stories herself and decide what is relevant to her -- if anything. In particular, Women Living with Self-Injury,[[ASIN:1566397219 Women Living With Self-Injury] the predecessor to this book, shares many of the same engaging qualities of I Am More Than One; ]I recommend reading it for more of the same honest look at topics that are seldom discussed in books, magazines or TV shows.
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Summary: Strength-based research--Brava!
Comment: Jane Hyman is a health writer (see "Our Bodies, Ourselves") who approaches the complexities of so-called mulitple personality from a perspective of health rather than pathology. She allows the women in this book to define their own lives rather than attempting to diagnose or label them. And there are many lives at stake here, for each of the women leads a number of seemingly separated existences, mostly developed in response to trauma during their childhoods. What I admire most about Jane Hyman's work is that she tells their stories and leaves the judgments of their stories to the reader.
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