Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation 1st Edition

Of all the books I’ve read on parts work, this one is my bible. Janina really gets it. I’ve learned so much about my system. Understanding yourself is key to healing.

As a trauma survivor, and someone in recovery from DID, this book is proving to be so powerful for me. I have read very widely on trauma and have learned a little bit from many authors; but this book goes so much further because Fisher brings together understandings from neuroscience; together with learnings of Internal Family Systems Therapy, the Structural Dissociation model and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, in a way that it's all so applicable to my daily life. Written in a very easy to read style, Fisher walks her talk making sure it's as accessible to trauma survivors as therapists, ensuring that any technical concepts are explained in easy to understand language. It's written with such compassion that Fisher's compassion can't help but rub off on us as we read!This book makes sense of so much that never made sense to me before. I can at long last understand why the parts only hear "the bad stuff"; why the messages I've been trying to get through to them about how safe we are now have been falling on deaf ears. I understand why I ended up so destabilised each time I went into therapy in the past - despite well-meaning therapists, I can see that they simply lacked the understanding of what was going on in my brain and how to work with me without destabilising me. I finally get why it's not about what happened to me so much as about what is continuing to go on inside of me. The book is an absolute wealth of information, and I'm going to have to read it over and over to take it all in - there are so many explanations for things that I thought weren't explainable!I'm living proof that the model that Fisher teaches really works. After giving up on going into therapy again, after too many attempts that just resulted in day to day life becoming unmanageable while in therapy, Fisher's teachings inspired me to have another go. I found a therapist trained in IFS and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and even though it's very early days I'm already starting to work with my parts in a way I've never been able to before. I feel better and more settled at the end of a therapy hour than the beginning, and I'm already better able to manage triggering. This model really works!My wish is that every single trauma survivor looking for answers, and every single therapist, be able to read this gem of a book. I salute and truly appreciate Janina Fisher for her curiosity and desire to find ways to make therapy work for us severely traumatised folk, and for making her learnings and skills so accessible to so many via this book.

I'm just up to Chapter 3 and have highlighted almost as much text as I've left white.I have lived with (C)PTSD all of my life despite determined, repeated and lengthy attempts to 'fix it' via any and every means and modality that I thought even had a ghost of a chance of helping. Some gave temporary relief, only to be followed by a return to my standard operating procedure, which is a traumatic response toward...well, everything. Most of my life's energy and focus has been on trying to fix, or at least manage, the symptoms.As the author states in the book - despite all of the therapy/self-help, many (I would say most-to-all) still live in the 'stuckness' of symptoms of fragmentation and limp through life with the "...vulnerability to being triggered by apparently innocuous stimuli, swept into the "trauma vortex," and overwhelmed with painful emotions and physiological responses." While I have tried some of the approaches described in this book, the attempts were done as stand-alone and without any knowledge of the Structural Dissociation Model which should be required training for every mental health worker and passed on to the client.At first glance, the book looked a bit dense and I nearly just put it on the shelf. Luckily, and out of resigned desperation (I was just coming out of a bewildering 'trauma vortex' situation), I picked it up. The information is presented in an integrated, scientific and holistic way, but doesn't read like dry research.I think it's important to know that you don't need to have DID (I don't) or even to have any kind of dissociative diagnosis. If you've experienced trauma I'd put this book at the top of the resource list. If I was currently in therapy, I'd buy the book and give it to him/her as a requisite for our working together! I believe this approach will prove to be pivotal, a turning point in how trauma can be, finally, successfully treated.

This is the absolute best book I have found on trying to heal from dissociative identity disorder. It is geared toward practitioners and clients both.It is also geared mostly toward people who have complex trauma histories and don’t have the same inner world as someone with DID. However, I felt like much of what is written for non-DID folks, I felt like I could apply to my system of DID parts. When I started reading this book I was able to apply some really important concepts and was able to become much more stable in two weeks time.Unfortunately, my therapist was not as interested in becoming an expert on this particular methodology as she has already studied so many other similar models. So, if you have DID, it may be a little harder to do this on your own, at least that is how I felt. I made great progress, but would have loved to have made more, but there were just some quandaries unique to DID that I would have loved to have help exploring if more was offered in the book for those with DID.I so wish this author would write a new book directed specifically to those with DID because there are few practitioners who really understand it as deeply as this author does.This book is definitely worth reading if you are motivated to get better and change your way of thinking. I imagine it is also great for practitioners to help their clients.