I wish I had a magic wand to make things better, but therapy doesn’t work that way.

What is it, sweetie," I asked."Hair, said a voice that wasn't Missy's. It was Little Joe, a two-year-old personality, and his fingers played in my waist-length hair just as my own babies had many years ago.My skin prickled as I realized how complete my experience was of being touched by a toddler.

Robin and Reagan are unique in that they date their creation not to a single traumatic event but to the need of the group to maintain a nonconficted, nonabreactive memory trace. The other past-keepers are both reactive and information-providing personalities-they appear in my office to give me information the system seems to think I need, or in response to my touching a critical nerve in the Jo, Missy, Joan Frances, or Renee personalities.

as my understanding of and competence in treating the disorder have grown, multiple personality has come to seem, though still horrendous, less unique and incomprehensible, and thus more manageable

To treat my first multiple, as to raise my first child, I had to commit myself deeply to the experience in order to tolerate the uncertainty, fear, pain, and intensity.

It is the story of people who found each other at the right moment in their lives and performed magic. (v)

I wish I had a magic wand to make things better, but therapy doesn't work that way.

It is this honest connection behveen two human beings that, in the end, makes what we endured together understandable and meaningful.

I have often tried to imagine how I might have acted differently. Always I end up in the same place.