In therapy today, A explained alters as “basically, walled-off archetypes.”
It’s a relief to finally have a therapist who’s worked with DID before, but that comment was just…asdfghjkl.
I don’t wanna be an archetype. They’re all mythological and shit, or else she means we’re each just a single feeling. Like the Cardboard President we used for campaign events: it looks like a real person, but only from a distance.
Can’t we be people? I think I’m a person.
If we hadn’t been in the dark and twisty place, I probably would’ve argued the point with her. If she calls us archetypes again, I probably will.
–Alison
The Life You Save May Be Your Own 
i don’t like to be called an alter Alison so i kind of understand how you feel. I hope at some point you will be able to talk to her about it
Ew. I think that’s one of the terms I actually dislike and usually I don’t have any real preference.
Ew thats an awful term. What the heck does it even mean? I sure as hell am not an archetype.
Ivan
They are all parts of the whole you. Your just one person no matter how it feels on the inside.
That’s certainly one school of thought, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. I mean, how are we defining “person”? There’s a lot of ways to interpret personhood, and I don’t think we necessarily have to be limited by a strictly legalistic definition of what’s a person. I mean, it’s not that long ago that people of color, people with disabilities, and even women weren’t considered people. How we define a person is expanding as our society gets more inclusive. And I think that’s a good thing.
And also I just don’t like being told I’m not a person.
–Alison
If you don’t like that … This should really piss you off! http://alternatesourcesoflight.wordpress.com/
Look. We clearly have vastly different ideas about DID. That’s fine; everyone’s entitled to their opinions and their points of view.
What’s not fine is to come on my blog and tell me I’m wrong when you have no empirical data to support that assertion. I’m fine with opinions. Hell, read my blog–I love opinions and have many of them. But don’t be so prideful as to accept and assert your opinions as fact, at least not in somebody else’s space. You’re doing the internet equivalent of walking into my house, rearranging my furniture, and telling me the diet my doctor recommended to me is all wrong. Just like my furniture placement and food choices belong to me, so does my understanding of what goes on in my head.
I’ve addressed this issue here before:
What I said there all still applies.
I’m not going to come on your blog and tell you that your understanding of your experience is All Wrong, so please don’t do it to me on my blog.
I always treat my wife’s insiders as real girls. They hate the terms alters and parts…
We don’t mind the term alter. Part depends on the context–for instance, I-Sara will say “a part of me thinks/feels…” when speaking to someone who doesn’t know about DID because that’s a cultural paradigm most people understand. But we don’t think of ourselves as parts.
And we’d certainly never refer to folks in another system by any terminology they didn’t like. I think it’s basic respect, what you’re talking about it. I’m sure your girls appreciate that. 🙂
That is so Jungian to say of your shrink… Ugh. I thought those guy’s ideas were outdated. I totally get that you’re indignant about that.
I can certainly see why that comment would piss you off. I think there’s times it would’ve pissed me off too. But- I don’t know the context of it, so I suppose anything I say is hypothesizing, but….
Does explaining alters as archetypal make them/us not people? Some of the most powerful people in our system (nod to The Doctor, whom I know some o you if not met talked to) are extremely archetypal- that doesn’t mean they’re less *people*, but that- there *is* a sense of- archetypal depth? to many people in many systems- I can see that. I don’t know if that’s what she meant, though. I would suggest you ask.
Alison! (((Hug if all right))) I missed you!
We been readin about “soul retrieval”, Richard Kluft an Colin Ross. One o these guys, or both of them, said archetypes are real souls who come from the “collective unconscious” to help people who are lopsin their own soul.
I hope that made sense. It wasn’t exactly how he said it, but it’s what he said. That we’re real people with real souls,
I have never heard the word “archetype” applied before and am not even sure what it means. To me, the terminology is not what is really important, so long as everyone involved can be in some sort of agreement as to what it means. For me, the main focus is healing and doing whatever it takes to become unified (whether that means full blending, or not). There you go…more terminology. It is something we just cannot get away from. Terminology is important, but it should never over-ride the healing process. I hope that made sense.