Man, so about a year ago I started seeing this therapist. I had just hit rock bottom for the first time in a long time and almost attempted to commit suicide. My mom and sister set me up with a woman that my sister's friend who is a social worker recommended. There were a lot of things that felt "off" about our sessions but she talked a lot about a term I have never heard called 'depilling' through the use of hypnosis. We only did it like three times, but it was like going back to my childhood (particularly parts I don't remember well) and ... replacing? the memory? Or like overlaying it with a new one. I haven't really been able to find any info about it online and I have an Associates in Psychology and it's not something we ever touched on. I saw her for about six month and I think the only reason I was "getting better" was I was naturally cycling out of the bad depression, too. Around month 3 she diagnosed me as DID (she was Marriage Family Therapist, not a Psychologist-Psychiatrist). And at that point I was kind of desperate for answers so I took the diagnosis and ran with it. When I finally said 'I want to see a Psychologist..' the thing I was describing that she said was 'text book DID' was actually me being Autistic and trying to figure out who or what to be in social situations. ANYWAYS. I guess now that I'm like 'that lady was kind of incompetent as shit' I'm worried about the last reaction I had to a Hypnosis Session. We "went back" to talk to my dad about the fact its not okay to and yell at people and I "recovered" a memory of him yelling at my brother and saying things to him. It physically hurt my brain, like it felt like some one shoved a spike in my head when I suddenly remembered this violent memory that I'm still kind of doubting. What's worse is not long after the session I went to Wal-Mart and a childhood friend's mom was there and it triggered nightmares about my friend and her brother being molested. It still kind of freaks me out and other people in other forums (a DID one in particular) told me that if I had such a strong reaction it "must be real." I'm just totally unsure about Regression Therapy and honestly the only person I have heard and felt like 'ah yes that is accurate' is watching Dr. Scully on The X-Files.
Studies have shown that regression therapy can make you remember things, and strongly believe the memory is true, whether they really happened or not. In other words, it turns out that getting that "memory", or the strength of the reaction, are not at all evidence that the thing must be real. I would suggest not acting on any memory you "recovered" (scare quotes endorsed) through this therapy unless you get independent confirmation. Also, "misdiagnosed with DID -> hypnotic regression therapy" is like a classic horror story of psych malpractice. I thought they'd stopped that shit in the 80s. DID got misdiagnosed so much that there's doctors still convinced that the condition doesn't actually exist.
Yeah that's what I thought! God, it's nice to hear some one else say it though... My therapist kept saying how she had been diagnosed DID and recovered? from it so she understood it better. I don't know, the more I look back on the experience the more I worry how much she could have really screwed me up
