As both a licensed psychologist and a person living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I’ve navigated the mental health system from both sides of the therapy chair. And I’ve come to accept a difficult truth: Most traditional DID trainings are failing the very people they aim to help.

These trainings may be rooted in clinical curiosity or theoretical rigor, but they are often lacking in one essential ingredient—humanity. What’s being passed off as education is, too often, training therapists to fear, misinterpret, or suppress the very parts of us that need connection and compassion.

We aren’t just clients with complex symptoms. We’re people—systems—living full lives with deep internal worlds, shaped by profound and prolonged trauma. When therapists are misinformed, we pay the price.

Many clinicians leave DID trainings afraid: afraid of "doing harm," afraid of dysregulation, afraid of getting it wrong. That fear gets passed on to the DID system that is your client. Therapists become overly cautious, shut down sessions when younger parts appear, or........

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