Dissociative identity disorder: Symbols for being yourself

Dissociative identity disorder is when you no longer feel your body. You are out of your body, so to speak. This is usually due to trauma. You don't want to feel that pain

You often see in severe cases that people flop out of their bodies and don't want to go back into them because it hurts too much. For example, in a car accident where people dissociate from the pain. People with this disorder avoid emotions and feeling their bodies. Part of the reason for this is that people with dissociative disorder are unable to properly express how their heart beats[1]. It is not that if you have these symptoms you are necessarily suffering from this disorder; people with other problems may also have similar symptoms. Therefore, always see a doctor if you want to name your problem.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself during a very painful moment. That you were distracted, that you suddenly felt something like, “I don’t feel anything anymore.” That the body’s self-protection mechanism kicks in, because otherwise it’s too intense.

For some people, this mechanism no longer works out. You then see at some point people start seeking help, getting therapy, getting that classification and getting medication.

Only why take medicine if you already don't feel your body?

It’s better to resolve the trauma. Now, that isn’t always easy, but taking a pill just to cope better with physical discomfort doesn’t make any sense either.

Case study: symbol to get back in the body

For example, I had someone in practice. What happened was interesting. She was telling her story. We hadn't gotten to the real problem yet, but she told what had happened with that not feeling the body.

Then she made a motion across her throat as if she were cutting her throat, as if something were stuck there. I’m used to seeing that kind of thing. The first time it’s an incident, the second time it’s a coincidence, and the third time it’s a pattern. If someone does that three times while saying something, I find that interesting.

So I say, "What's in there, because you've been doing this three times now."

She was not even aware of this. But she said, "It's like there's a steel plate separating my head from my body."

So I said, "Get that record out then."

Then she said, "Yeah you can't, it's stuck with those pop rivets."

So I mentally gave her a nail remover, I didn't know what such a thing was called, and asked what happened next.

"It's gone now, but it's ice now."

Ice is also interesting from a symbolic perspective. Water represents emotion, and frozen water represents frozen emotion. So I was very curious to see what would happen.

So I said, "Here you have an axe, just chop a wak." So then she went about chopping a wak in her mind while in hypnosis. She doesn't know what's going to happen and neither do I. Then suddenly the release came. The tears literally came right out of her eyes, as if it was under tremendous pressure.

She was shocked by this, but she also couldn't push it away, it only lasted a moment. So I asked her what happened next.

"All dregs."

So I said, "Oh there comes the dredge barge. So all the dredging goes away."

Then I asked her again what happened.

"Grass, I feel the grass. Wow, I'm in my body."

All at once, she was back in her body. That session did last a little longer than what I describe here, but these were the big picture. This is what just one session can do and now she feels fine.

Trauma had also changed. You have two ways of looking at it.

1. The trauma was the dredge. The dredge was the symbol for the trauma and we cleaned that up. Now we are in clean and nice fresh grass.
2. Why this can work, too. It is, of course, much larger now. I only found this out after the fact. She is much bigger now, what she went through as a child was all very intense. By then she had already gone out of her body.

For many people with dissociative disorder, there is also a distinct difference between the younger self and the older self. For example, people with this disorder find it difficult to determine who they are and where they are in time and place. So it is normal for a younger version of yourself to cause you to not feel comfortable in your body[2].

Now that she is back in her body in her early 20s, she can put that behind her and just get on with living her life.

Because her body left everything behind, her body just grew up. That little self that was still with it, that was dissociated, so that person was mentally disconnected from the body. Now she is back in it, because the trauma is resolved and now she can live her life.

When you see how effective this approach is, it’s amazing. We didn’t delve into the content at all; I only heard about it afterward. We didn’t delve into the past at all. It worked purely with symbols. That’s the power of the subconscious—working with symbols and emotions.

Emotions are linked to situations that have taken place. We can use emotions to bring out information from a situation. This is what we do with regression.

But so you can also look at what the symbol is. You then say, "It's like there's a ... sitting there." For example, "It's like there's a tube around my neck." If you then remove it, you can see what happens. An emotional release usually follows.

As to what put that quiver there, we can guess. You may know it too, but the fact is you are liberated when it is gone.

Painful memories don't necessarily

Working with symbols can be very liberating and has less of an impact on the client than when they have to recall things during therapy .

All of this has its value, of course, because reliving things that allow you to let go of them has the effect of doing a lot of therapy afterwards. You're going to think about it, you're going to give it another place, you're going to revisit it.

You have less of this with symbols because there is less content attached. This is an advantage because then you don't have to say much about that content.

Many people actually want to know, which is why I don't work very much with symbols, but some clients don't want to lose it. They find it much too difficult to tell their story and then working with symbols can be very effective.

Using symbols can also help people get a better sense of their lives, their daily problems and what direction they actually want to take with their lives. Leaving the dregs behind and helping in the right direction to be able to see the green grass is then the therapist's main task[3].

Also listen to this webinar:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1336183-symbolen-werken-vaak-beter-dan-de-inhoud

Symbols are not just for hypnotherapy

Symbols aren’t limited to hypnotherapy. They also appear in other therapies for treating trauma or even PTSD. For example, in art therapy[4]. By drawing or creating something similar about your trauma, you can process it in a different way than by reliving the moment itself over and over again.

The use of symbols is also encouraged to help people with complex trauma reintegrate. This can also be combined with cognitive therapies[5], such as hypnotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy.

Symbols in child hypnosis

For minor issues—such as fears commonly experienced by children—the use of symbols is also highly effective. Because children are not yet able to view their problems from an adult perspective and already live in a world of play and fantasy, the use of symbols is particularly popular in child hypnosis[6], and this is often more effective with children.

Hypnosis is thus incredibly interesting for larger and smaller problems, and the use of symbols can help when people actually don't want to retrieve a painful memory to resolve it. After all, there are several roads that lead to Rome.

Would you also like to use hypnosis to help yourself or others? Then come to a hypnosis playshop to master the basics of hypnosis.

Would you like to see how a hypnotherapy session works and learn hypnosis alongside others? Then come to a hypnosis seminar.

Would you like to get started right away with techniques, such as how to use symbols? Then sign up for one of the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. The courses are held in Wormerveer, Zwolle, and online.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00897/full

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S246874991730090X

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Judson_Davis_Phd/publication/338670636_Active_Imagination_in_Psychotherapy/links/5e22ca91299bf1e1faba0dba/Active-Imagination-in-Psychotherapy.pdf

[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J229v06n04_02

[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15299730903179083

[6]  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00029157.2019.1609840