Thursday, July 26, 2007

View of Essences by an Essence

In a recent e-mail from a lady with MPD by my definition, she quoted her own ISH/Essence as saying this about her role as Essence:

"[My ISH] told me that being an Essence can be very challenging and sometimes less experienced ones miscalculate how their charge will react. She believes “administering” anxiety in response to a charge’s misbehavior is an art form unto itself. Some Essences simply “up the ante” each time their charge misbehaves and by doing so they are actually fueling the flames rather than leading their charge toward a more suitable course of action. But in order to provide a charge with positive reinforcement, the charge must do something positive. Some Essences have to wait a very long time before this happens.



"She likens being an Essence to playing chess. Some Essences see many, many moves ahead. Others are less successful at anticipating how humans will react."


So you can see by this that there are various grades of competency of Essences. Such has been my teaching by the CIE who supervise them. Thus there is no guarantee that one Essence will behave exactly like another might in the same situation, so different outcomes are to be expected. Fortunately, I have found that the most talented Essences have been assigned to my patients with the most complicated forms of MPD, sometimes called Complex DID. If they were not so talented, their "charge" would die from the abuse to which they have been exposed. Then the whole scenario might have to be replayed in a subsequent lifetime. Such a waste of lifetimes!