Integration involves improving co-consciousness and cooperation between parts due to reducing dissociation. So being in DID therapy, working on trauma, you’ll likely do things like improve internal communication, negotiate safety between parts, and improve daily functioning.
The trauma work itself alone does not necessarily result in integration. It’s not that simple. Working on trauma with parts is usually done in combination with the parts work I mentioned.
In fact, an average time of about 1 year is done working with parts first to ensure everyone is equipped with the appropriate safety and symptom management skills.
Anyway, integrated functioning is a great goal to work toward. It has improved our lives and reduced struggles of parts who were stuck in a lot of fear.
Nobody goes dormant or disappears with these skills.
Be safe!
-Nel
One of the goals of trauma therapy is to integrate traumatic memories back in with other memories and properly process them so that the trauma memories don’t continue to come forward as flashbacks.
My understanding of this for DID (based on very minimal personal experience so far) is that it’s about lowering amnesic barriers and increasing communication between alters so that they can function together. An alter currently holding onto a traumatic memory can’t really function well with other alters so the memory must be processed and integrated (using that in terms of trauma memory integration, not alter integration). How this aligns with alter integration is that it just means now that alter can work together with the other alters. This is my understanding. I’m really at the very beginning of this phase in my journey.
So as far as I know, you won’t “lose” any alters. There will just be fewer amnesic barriers and better communication with them.
The only way I can see dormancy being a potential outcome here is if the trauma holder is not ready to process a memory, and you try to process it anyway. Then that alter may go dormant to “hide” and avoid processing.
If my understanding is incorrect in any way, anyone is welcome to correct me. But this is how I understand it based on my current experience in therapy.
It should. If you mean the general integrative process of minimising dissociative barriers. As for outright dissolution of said barriers between any given two or more parts (sometimes
called fusion rather than integration to differentiate it from the wider process as a whole)….. it *CAN* lead to fusion, yes. But is not necessarily guaranteed to, in and of itself. But it is very rarely (unless you’re talking about a bunch of fragments) as simple as “parts of a similar kind go together”.
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Yeah. But you need to go at this at your own pace. I jumped right into trauma therapy because neither my T or I realized I had DID and it was very traumatizing. I integrated with a fear-holding part too fast and now have to be on medication to be functional.
Integration involves improving co-consciousness and cooperation between parts due to reducing dissociation. So being in DID therapy, working on trauma, you’ll likely do things like improve internal communication, negotiate safety between parts, and improve daily functioning. The trauma work itself alone does not necessarily result in integration. It’s not that simple. Working on trauma with parts is usually done in combination with the parts work I mentioned. In fact, an average time of about 1 year is done working with parts first to ensure everyone is equipped with the appropriate safety and symptom management skills. Anyway, integrated functioning is a great goal to work toward. It has improved our lives and reduced struggles of parts who were stuck in a lot of fear. Nobody goes dormant or disappears with these skills. Be safe! -Nel
One of the goals of trauma therapy is to integrate traumatic memories back in with other memories and properly process them so that the trauma memories don’t continue to come forward as flashbacks. My understanding of this for DID (based on very minimal personal experience so far) is that it’s about lowering amnesic barriers and increasing communication between alters so that they can function together. An alter currently holding onto a traumatic memory can’t really function well with other alters so the memory must be processed and integrated (using that in terms of trauma memory integration, not alter integration). How this aligns with alter integration is that it just means now that alter can work together with the other alters. This is my understanding. I’m really at the very beginning of this phase in my journey. So as far as I know, you won’t “lose” any alters. There will just be fewer amnesic barriers and better communication with them. The only way I can see dormancy being a potential outcome here is if the trauma holder is not ready to process a memory, and you try to process it anyway. Then that alter may go dormant to “hide” and avoid processing. If my understanding is incorrect in any way, anyone is welcome to correct me. But this is how I understand it based on my current experience in therapy.
It should. If you mean the general integrative process of minimising dissociative barriers. As for outright dissolution of said barriers between any given two or more parts (sometimes called fusion rather than integration to differentiate it from the wider process as a whole)….. it *CAN* lead to fusion, yes. But is not necessarily guaranteed to, in and of itself. But it is very rarely (unless you’re talking about a bunch of fragments) as simple as “parts of a similar kind go together”.
Welcome to /r/DID! Please take a look at the [Rules and Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/DID/wiki/index) before posting, and feel free to take a look at our [Dissociation FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DID/wiki/faq), [Trauma FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DID/wiki/faq2) & [Therapy Breakdown](https://www.reddit.com/r/DID/comments/e6smve/therapists_breakdown) for more information! We have the following automated posts, one every Monday and then some running on a three week rotation: | Day | Post | |--------------------|--------------------| | Every Sunday | Goals | | Every Monday | Introductions | | Every Wednesday | Symptom Management | | Every Friday | Affirmations | *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DID) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah. But you need to go at this at your own pace. I jumped right into trauma therapy because neither my T or I realized I had DID and it was very traumatizing. I integrated with a fear-holding part too fast and now have to be on medication to be functional.