Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities
Oct 2007 · Sold by Crown
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38 reviews
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About this ebook
In 1989, a woman walked into Dr. Richard Baer’s office asking for help with memory loss. Thus begins the first and only complete account of Dissociative Identity Disorder treatment told from inside the consulting room.
“An absorbing journey through a psychiatrist’s dauntingly challenging first case—from the beginning of therapy to stable integration and recovery. Vivid, loaded with fascinating details. A richly rewarding read.”—Colin Ross, author of Multiple Personality Order
Karen Overhill didn’t know why she kept losing parts of her day. She didn’t know why she found herself in places she didn’t remember going. She didn't know why people described conversations she had no memory of having.
Then Dr. Baer received a letter. It was addressed in Karen’s handwriting. The sender was a seven-year-old girl who said she lived inside Karen.
She was one of seventeen.
What followed was fourteen years of the most challenging and most documented case of DID in clinical literature.
A young boy filled with frightening aggression. An adult male who considered himself Karen’s protector. A sassy flirt who sought dominance over the others. Seventeen distinct personalities, each holding a fragment of a childhood of unimaginable abuse. Each one a survival mechanism. Each one, in time, a person Dr. Baer came to know.
In Switching Time, you will find:
• The complete first-person physician account of a DID case from first session to full integration, never before told from the treating doctor’s perspective
• Seventeen personalities rendered in full: their letters, their artwork, their fears, and their remarkable will to survive
• The therapeutic relationship in its rawest form: the trust, the limits, and the cost of caring across more than a decade
• A story readers have compared to Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve, with the distinction that this one is complete, from a single doctor’s unbroken perspective
If you have ever wondered what it actually takes in real time, over real years, to help a human being survive what Karen survived, Switching Time is the account that answers that question. There is no other book like this one.
“Baer guided Karen to a place where she could risk knowing the horrors lurking in her elaborate inner world. One marvels at this caring therapist and his immense honesty, courage, and commitment.”—Dena Rosenbloom, Ph.D., co-author of Life After Trauma
“An absorbing journey through a psychiatrist’s dauntingly challenging first case—from the beginning of therapy to stable integration and recovery. Vivid, loaded with fascinating details. A richly rewarding read.”—Colin Ross, author of Multiple Personality Order
Karen Overhill didn’t know why she kept losing parts of her day. She didn’t know why she found herself in places she didn’t remember going. She didn't know why people described conversations she had no memory of having.
Then Dr. Baer received a letter. It was addressed in Karen’s handwriting. The sender was a seven-year-old girl who said she lived inside Karen.
She was one of seventeen.
What followed was fourteen years of the most challenging and most documented case of DID in clinical literature.
A young boy filled with frightening aggression. An adult male who considered himself Karen’s protector. A sassy flirt who sought dominance over the others. Seventeen distinct personalities, each holding a fragment of a childhood of unimaginable abuse. Each one a survival mechanism. Each one, in time, a person Dr. Baer came to know.
In Switching Time, you will find:
• The complete first-person physician account of a DID case from first session to full integration, never before told from the treating doctor’s perspective
• Seventeen personalities rendered in full: their letters, their artwork, their fears, and their remarkable will to survive
• The therapeutic relationship in its rawest form: the trust, the limits, and the cost of caring across more than a decade
• A story readers have compared to Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve, with the distinction that this one is complete, from a single doctor’s unbroken perspective
If you have ever wondered what it actually takes in real time, over real years, to help a human being survive what Karen survived, Switching Time is the account that answers that question. There is no other book like this one.
“Baer guided Karen to a place where she could risk knowing the horrors lurking in her elaborate inner world. One marvels at this caring therapist and his immense honesty, courage, and commitment.”—Dena Rosenbloom, Ph.D., co-author of Life After Trauma
In 1989, a woman walked into Dr. Richard Baer’s office asking for help with memory loss. Thus begins the first and only complete account of Dissociative Identity Disorder treatment told from inside the consulting room.
“An absorbing journey through a psychiatrist’s dauntingly challenging first c...
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Ratings and reviews
38 reviews
Nicholette Campbell
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July 17, 2017
It is a story with a happy ending, more or less, but it is slightly painful to get through. The events that took place in Karen's life are horrendously disturbing and terrible, and quite possibly triggering to some readers. I do believe reader discretion should be advised. Despite that, however, it is a fascinating story that raised many thoughts and questions in my mind. I do think it is worth the time spent reading it (which was a little less than 2 days for me).
Holly. Mulrooney
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October 19, 2017
Absolutely unbelievable!! Though very difficult to digest a good portion of what happened to Karen, just as Dr. Baer guided her with his profound compassion, so he does the reader. I cannot help but wonder "what if he ended up being the "wrong" therapist for her?" What an amazing doctor and human.
ambear kittyface
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July 25, 2015
I have read it 8 times. I find this book always grounds me and helps me realize how much worse life could be. it's an absolutely wonderful book. and I suggest that everyone and anyone should indulge themselves in this gift to the world.
About the author
For fourteen years, Dr. Richard Baer did something that had never been documented in clinical literature: he treated and fully integrated a patient with seventeen distinct personalities. Switching Time is the account of that work a real-time clinical and human record of what it actually takes, over real years, to help a person survive what Karen survived. It has been compared by reviewers to Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve, with the distinction that it is told entirely from the treating physician’s perspective, making it the first account of its kind. Dr. Baer brings to this story fourteen years of private psychiatry practice, during which Karen’s case unfolded session by session, personality by personality. He has served as President of the Illinois Psychiatric Society and as Medical Director for Medicare across multiple states.
For fourteen years, Dr. Richard Baer did something that had never been documented in clinical literature: he treated and fully integrated a patient with seventeen distinct personalities. Switching Time is the account of that work a real-time clinical and human record of what it actually takes, ov...
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