A Tipperary based counsellor has released a book that focuses on the impact of multiple personality disorders.
Dr Jim O’Shea from Thurles wrote the first of three volumes of Emerging from the Darkness, which focuses on the story of one of his long-time clients Margaret who suffered a severe case of dissociative personality disorder after being abused as a child and teenager.
Jim used a form of trauma therapy called EMDR to help Margaret process what she had suffered throughout her life.
Speaking to Tipp Today, Jim said that this form of therapy is the best type to deal with trauma like Margaret’s.
“It’s actually the best trauma therapy in the world. It’s very big in America, it was founded by Francine Shapiro and she was out walking one day – I think she was in the woods – and her eyes were moving and she felt different so she began to experiment. It’s kind of based upon REM sleep – Rapid Eye Movement sleep – and it’s a very important part of our sleep. So it’s [EMDR] got 8 phases and phase 4 is the processing stage where you take the target and process it and you can measure it, ‘how disturbing is this to you on a scale of 0-10?’
