Part 2: From Nouns to Verbs: Rethinking Dissociative Identity
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is often described as if the self were divided into “parts” – nouns. Each part has a role, a job, even a personality. That framework can be helpful for some, but it never fully matched my experience.
Nouns suggest things that are fixed and unchanging. But the mind is not a thing. The mind is a process — a dynamic flow of energy and information, always adapting, always moving.
Through the lens of Interpersonal Neurobiology, what I experienced as DID were not fixed “parts” at all. They were dissociated self-states (DSSs) – protective processes, verbs rather than nouns. Each one fragmented awareness in just the way needed to create memory barriers.
And those barriers weren’t random or pathological. They were strategies of survival.
In therapy with Dr. Dan Siegel, there were no labels, no assumptions about what my self-states should be called or what roles they should play. He met each one exactly as it appeared, without trying to fit it into a model.
This openness allowed the hidden truths of my childhood to emerge on their own terms. Each self-state carried a piece of my story, and each was honored for the protective purpose it had served.
DID, in this light, isn’t about multiple selves. It’s about dis-integration: differentiated processes that were pulled apart and kept separate.
In the final essay of this series, I’ll explore how the journey of therapy was about dissolving those barriers, linking what had been fragmented, and finding integration through the IPNB lens.