Life After MPD

By Debra Lighthart

Life After MPD is a glimpse into Multiple Personality Disorder and life after it. It is about understanding, accepting, and healing. The road to recovery is difficult and painful; but possible. Life After MPD is a journey shared with hope and encouragement for you, your client, or someone you love. Everyone needs hope, encouragement, and support especially when they are on a path of healing. Life After MPD offers that promise. It also offers wisdom, insight, understanding, and is a gift of assurance and support; use it and share it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888125764
• ISBN13: 9781888125764
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Length: 144 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A Different Perspective for MPD

I approached the concept of MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) like most of America, leery and un-informed. I came out of this book having not only a better understanding but a true idea of what the people suffering from this disorder go through and how they can become better. The book's author, Dr. Lighthart, is not only a doctor who treats and diagnoses MPD but also suffers from the disorder herself. This alone gives her an entirely different aspect of the problems involved and how to solve them. In this book, she covers her diagnosis and her road to recovery. She gives you an insight like no other to what not only the patient goes through but the patient's family, friends and doctors. Actual transcripts of her meetings with her doctor/psychiatrist and art work that she drew to explain her thoughts and feelings make it not only very real but bring you to realize that she is a regular human being that suffers from a not so 'regular' disorder. The mere and simple fact that as a sufferer of MPD she not only thrives well in the normal world but helps others with this disorder makes you realize that MPD is not a lost cause where we need to put these people away and cast them aside. Very treatable and often misunderstood, she brings a spark of reality to the disease that makes you understand and realize, if even only a small portion of, what's going on in their mind. This book would be a wonderful gift to anyone in the psychology field or for anyone with a friend or loved one that suffers from the disease. I enjoyed it just to understand more about the people around us who might suffer from MPD and finally get a better understanding that isn't biased or untrue like "Sybil" and other stories we've heard or read about it. A realistic viewpoint that shares some of the most intense and private moments of a woman and her life with MPD.

The Path Less Chosen

Life After MPD written by Debra Lighthart is a book about Multiple Personality Disorder and the path less chosen. By the path less chosen I am speaking about the path to healing through the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, which I believe is the only way to find true and total healing. While psychology and counselors and therapists all play an important role in this process, none of them alone have the power to bring hope, help and true healing to the disorderly and confusing life of a multiple. With in the pages of her book, Debra outlines what the path looked like for her. How she sought the power of the spirit and allowed it to guide her process and ultimately bring true healing within her life. She encourages a person with MPD to remember first and foremost, to not depend on anyone or anything but God within them to bring about the external change, for in God's eyes, everyone including the multiple is whole. It is a refreshing outlook for one to be reminded that MPD does not define who a multiple is, but only a symptom of a world gone awry. If you are seeking an easy path through MPD, this is not the book for you, for God says that the path to Him is narrow, however if you are seeking true healing from the inside out, this book offers itself to be an effective guide to setting a path towards your own healing process.

Case Study in Mental Integration

This book will primarily appeal to mental health professionals and students in related fields. Some patients who may have Dissociative Identity Disorder or Multiple Personality Order may also wish to read the book, as potentially will their family and friends. Beginning with Freud, mental health professionals have made it a practice to write somewhat disguised, anonymous case histories of their patients. These try to look "in" where no one can really go, someone else's mental processes and experiences.I have always found case histories of mental issues that are written by trained mental health professionals who were the patients made for more valuable case histories. That's what drew me to this book.Before reading this, all I knew about the subject was seeing the move, The Three Faces of Eve.Dr. Lighthart is clearly a highly intelligent, sensitive, multitalented, imaginative and observant person. What she describes about her therapy makes an experience that is beyond my comprehension somewhat understandable to me. She chooses to say relatively little about the abuse she suffered as a child, which makes the book easier to read. Since she didn't really remember the abuse until going into therapy, you find yourself learning to perceive it in much the same way she did. Of all the case histories I have read about mental healing, this is the only one I can remember that places spiritual values in a central role. I was pleased to see that the book explained why that is a helpful approach.Overall, my reaction to the book was to reinforce my belief that with the right questions and mental processes we can solve any problem in a magnificent way. The book's main draw back is that the writing is loosely, rather than tightly related to the subject of telling her story. So you'll find a lot of unnecessary repetition . . . such as the many references to Dr. Lighthart's discussions with her art instructor.Overall, I found that I learned a lot about the problems she had in overcoming her challenges. If you decide to read this book, take some time afterwards to get to know someone you love much better by asking about her or his childhood memories. Be supportive and loving as you do!

Help for those in therapy

This is not a lurid account of multiple personality disorder such as "Sybil." Nor are there graphic details of the abuse that Debra Lighthart, a licensed clinical psychologist, suffered as a child. This is a journal-like book outlining the steps Lighthart took during her therapy to deal with MPD, a result of childhood trauma.The most interesting part of the book is Lighthart's description about how the multiple identities ("alters") emerged. They were not all living in her, fully formed with her swapping people in and out through some kind of mental revolving door. Instead, she gives a very different view of discovering how these "alters" function, one taking tests, another drawing and painting, another emerging as a healer ("Turtle"), the part seeking health and unity. Some of the alters seem to solidify into discrete entities only when analyzed. It's not exactly like you see in movies. And this would probably be of great help to someone going through therapy for this disorder, or doing therapy for other childhood trauma or post-stress difficulties. This is a good read for a clinical psychology student or a patient.

Recommended reading for psychology students

Life After MPD by educator and licenced Clinical Pastoral Counselor Debra Lighthart is a deeply personal and revealing account of one woman's affliction with "Multiple Personality Disorder", the nightmare childhood that fractured her personality, and the long road to recovery. Profound, reverently reflecting a faith in God, and gut-wrenchingly real and straightforward in its description of how abuse can lead to psychological trauma, and uplifting in its recounting of the journey to wholeness through the gradual accumulation of trust. Life After MPD is recommended reading for psychology students, counseling practitioners, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in multiple personality disorder conditions.