Q. What about young alters who want to go through re-parenting in therapy before they agree to age or integrate? - Angela
A: I am not a fan of outsiders reparenting alters. Too many counseling clients have become overly enmeshed or dependent upon counselors and other professionals who thought reparenting was a great idea. We have seen a few Dissociative Identity Disorder autobiographies that showcase this style, and failure, of treatment.
I believe insiders have the ability, the responsibility, and the skills to reparent younger alters. Most systems even have these older, wiser, calmer alters already created. They are there for a reason! Use them for that! I don't think we create these caretakers and protectors by accident.
I fear that depending on an outsider to reparent leaves alters too open for more hurt, abuse, abandonment, and even a slower recovery. Why? Because an outsider is never with you 24/7. An outsider will always lose patience with your needs sometimes because of their own needs and stressful life. An outsider will either start to resent your needs, or will become attached to the role of caretaker or special friend and may not want you to recover because they want to maintain that role. They may not even realize they are sabotaging your recovery, because they really usually do want to help you by giving you comfort and support. But it's a fine line between support and enabling.
So reparent from within. You have the resources. Plus reparenting inside helps the whole system learn how to take care of themselves, the body, and even how to nurture other relationships in their lives. That way both the reparent and the reparented grow from the process.
1 comment:
I am the lover of an MP. He and I ave already begun reparenting, without me knowing it.
He does have internal caretakers, and they keep things balanced within his system. But they need help.
Since I am there 24/7, that isn't a problem. I'm still meeting all 35 for his alters. They are balanced pretty much between littles, tweens, and "G'rups".
They come to me to help them with what they need, be it discipline, love or just someone to listen.
We have managed to regress one adult personaility to the age of four. The adult was created to keep the world from knowing they were multiple, and had gone from reigning with terror, to violent acts against the others, after he had started therapy, and others now knew, other than his close friends and family.
H, the others and I took away her old name, gave her a new one, and made her into a four year old. I'm not sure how, but she didn;t want to be what she was as an adult. I think most of it was her own wish to become something better.
She is now a happy, loving little girl. Who still has her moments, but nothing like before.
We have a kind of unique approach to dealing with things. Rules, structure, all the things he/they have wanted for a very long time. And he continues his therapy.
He suggested I read The Flock by Joan Frances Casey. He had told me that what we were doing was reparenting, and he wanted me to read it to see how the therapy worked, and to let me know we were on the right track.
I hope that some can find reparenting helpful. But it isn't something you can do in an office twice a week. It *has* to big a bigger commitment.
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