Presenter: |
Richard A. Chefetz, M.D. |
Chair: |
Ronald A. Bodansky, PhD |
Self Psychology Page | 22nd Conference Program
Abstract
The personification of self-states in dissociative identity disorder is a controversial subject. The author proposes that accepting personification and slowly introducing a reflective awareness of that which is illogical joins the patient in their defensive adaptation and allows the gradually less distant exploration of disavowed, denied, and dissociated affect which might otherwise be unapproachable. Affect is viewed as the pivotal feature of a cognitive psychoanalytic psychology useful in the treatment of persons with self-states. Sadomasochistic patterns of behavior rely upon the presence of self-states and are related to the creative use of perverse mastery to muffle one pain under the blanket of another as a means of paradoxical self-soothing.