Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity

by Valerie Sinason (Editor)

This Revised Edition of Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity investigates the subject of Dissociative Identity Disorder. With brand new chapters on police work and attachment theory it has been fully updated to include new research and the latest understanding of patterns of attachment theory that lead to dissociation. With contributions from psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and service users this book covers the background history and a description of the condition along with the issues of diagnoses and treatment. It also looks Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity, Second Edition will prove essential reading for therapists and mental health workers as well as being a valuable resource for graduates and researchers.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Health

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Valerie Sinason, PhD, is a poet, writer, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst. She specialised in working with abused/abusing and dissociative patients including those with a learning disability, and was Founder Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies until December 2016 when she retired from long-term clinical work.
Valerie continues with writing, supervision and short-term assessment work.
Dr Sinason’s extensive writing includes over 100 published, peer-reviewed papers.
She has written over 20 books and lectures nationally and internationally.

Reviews

[❄Elsa Frost❄ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Especially as someone diagnosed with DID, I find this book very useful for us. Additional attachment styles beyond the known 4 are described here, which I find incredibly helpful because I feel that the additional ones are more relatable than the known ones.

This book covers a variety on DID and even on DDs (dissociative disorders) in general. So if anyone is in need of information on these, this provides some information on DDs as well. Also covered are the topics of ritual abuse, organized abuse, and mind control, which can be helpful and validating for some.

[Anna K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I should have checked the publishing date before reading. Reading this book in 2023 is a joke.
It consists of articles/chapters written by different authors, of very different quality. Some articles are ok, but others only make one roll their eyes. There is absolutely no need to read academic literature on DID that is 20 years old, my bad, I guess.

[I-love-reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing. Some chapters are good or very good but overall there doesn't seem to be a central theme - some chapters are a personal theory or way of working that clash with others within the same book, and a number of these also fail to meet the treatment guidelines for dissociative identity disorder. Some chapters are about complex trauma and do not include anything significant about DID. I don't know if the book resulted from a collection of presentations given at a conference but it has that feel. Sue Richardson, Valerie Sinason, Joan Coleman, and the interview with DCI Clive Driscoll are very good (2nd edition, 2011)

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and easily relatable to practice. The focus on how dissociative tendencies develop really interested me (not just severe trauma, but upbringing). Was the right mix of science and real life examples!