Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities

Touching yet very disturbing

This book was very touching. Obviously the woman who developed 17 different personalities had to have gone through a tremendous amount of trauma to resort to disassociating. The trauma was so unbelievably disturbing that I could not finish the book. I wish I could have finished it in order to honor the woman and the writer, but, even though I am not faint of heart, I could not bring myself to do so.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Compelling Tale of Hope and Healing

The author, one of those rare psychiatrists who still practiced therapy as part of his art, has woven a remarkable and disturbing tale of a woman who was so severely abused in childhood that her personality split into 17 parts. He tells the story of their work to reintegrate 'Karen' into a whole, healthy person with compassion and a straightforward manner that will win no literary awards for purple prose but will draw you in and keep you riveted. Karen's alters fill in the details of the story and will make you wonder at her incredible strength. Indeed, her note to the readership in the Afterword is the most powerful, beautiful part of the whole story. One warning: this book is not for the faint of heart. Karen was treated in incomprehensibly cruel ways, and the tiny fraction of the story of abuse that fills most of these pages will make your heart ache in ways you didn't know possible. In the end, though, it is a happy, hopeful story of one wonderful, strong woman and one incredibly giving, loving, and insightful mental health care provider. You will love them both in the end.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Jennifer Wardrip - Personal Read

I've always been interested in cases of multiple personality, and SWITCHING TIME is the mother of them all.

I found myself immersed in the story of both the doctor and patient and cringing at the horrors this poor woman suffered (although I will admit that I'm not quite sure, even after reading the book, how many of the events she mentioned actually, truly happened).

This book is disturbing at times, but also immensely interesting. For fans of the subject, this is definitely a must-read!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Fascinating

As someone who studied psychology, I am always interested in the topic -- and multiples are of course among the most interesting phenomena. However, this book was even more engaging as it was written from the theraputic viewpoint. An amazing story of survival, courage and triumph.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

How Far The Mind Will Go To Protect Itself

Imagine pretending to be asleep in order to overhear conversations between your family and friends, so that you can learn your mother¿s name, or where your husband works. Karen was continually searching for ways to hide her obvious insanity until a desperate call to a crisis hot-line in 1989, led her to Dr. Richard Baer. The complexities of the human mind have never before been revealed with such detail, dimension and compassion. Horrific, unimaginable abuse had forced Karen to create different personalities, with widely varying characteristics and abilities. As new personalities were introduced, the depth of Karen¿s suffering became obvious, as did the fear that the darkness would consume her. With careful guidance and unwavering patience, Dr. Baer was able to gain the individual trust of the seventeen alters, convincing each that although they had been created to protect Karen, her very survival now depended upon their complete and total destruction. This is an amazing read! The level of abuse, the detailed characteristics of the created alters are almost beyond comprehension and leads you to question how it is someone that has suffered so greatly could ever be whole again. Which is, yet another testament to the human will to survive. Switching Time is by far one of the best non-fiction books I have read in years. Just as the alters were created as a means of survival, during the darkest and most frightening experiences imaginable, their destruction became a necessary step in the journey from divided survival to whole living. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a compelling, thought provoking, inspiring read. Happy Reading!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Amazing woman, she had to survive the horrors of her childhood

A must read true story that will have you re-reading again just to try and figure out how she lived through it. Dr. Baer...U R awesome, stuck by her thru this ordeal that also became yours. You gave up so much to help her put herself back together.

A waste of time & money

1st review I've ever written--who cares about my opinion? But this was so bad, I had to warn other readers off, particularly in light of its high star rating---which fooled me. For those who have read other books on this topic, even novelizations/dramatizations--this is the least credible of the bunch. Both the portrayal of the patient & the therapist are one-dimensional, as are the other 16 "personalities" portrayed. Individual "integrations" are barely distinguishable from one another & bear no resemblence to other PEER-REVIEWED reports. Baer even admits to his negative feelings toward the patient initially when presenting as a run-of-the-mill depressive; he only got interested when either the patient and/or he decided it was a case of DID. Even more unforgivable, the book is BORING! Better to check out free websites/Wikipedia if interested in the subject.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Highly recommended; Amazing memoir.

This is an incredible memoir by a psychiaitrist about his patient, a woman who suffered horrific abuse as a child and survived by splitting into 17 distinct personalities. His account is very well written, and while the details of the abuse she suffered are absolutely shocking, by the end I was uplifted and touched by her courage and by her therapist's dedication.

interesting

an entertaining and easy read. some parts are very graphic and contain detailed accounts of abuse, i would recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology

A dated memoir

I found this account of a doctor who treats a women who had multiple personalities to be very dated. The technique that this doctor used were straight from the 1980's, primarily hypnosis. I would guess that this patient is the first severely traumatized client that he had.

one word...WOW

Imagine pretending to be asleep in order to overhear conversations between your family and friends, so that you can learn your mother¿s name, or where your husband works. Karen was continually searching for ways to hide her obvious insanity until a desperate call to a crisis hot-line in 1989, led her to Dr. Richard Baer. The complexities of the human mind have never before been revealed with such detail, dimension and compassion. Horrific, unimaginable abuse had forced Karen to create different personalities, with widely varying characteristics and abilities. As new personalities were introduced, the depth of Karen¿s suffering became obvious, as did the fear that the darkness would consume her. With careful guidance and unwavering patience, Dr. Baer was able to gain the individual trust of the seventeen alters, convincing each that although they had been created to protect Karen, her very survival now depended upon their complete and total destruction. .This is an amazing read! The level of abuse, the detailed characteristics of the created alters are almost beyond comprehension and leads you to question how it is someone that has suffered so greatly could ever be whole again. Which is, yet another testament to the human will to survive. Switching Time is by far one of the best non-fiction books I have read in years. Just as the alters were created as a means of survival, during the darkest and most frightening experiences imaginable, their destruction became a necessary step in the journey from divided survival to whole living. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a compelling, thought provoking, inspiring read¿ absolutely 5 stars! Happy Reading! RJ

Riveting!

I could not put this book down. While I was horrified at the monstrous things people do to another human being, I was fascinated at what people do to cope. This woman was able to survive severe trauma by 'splitting' herself and creating different personalities for different activites and situations. For her to then be able to integrate all of these and become a 'whole' and healthy person is amazing.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.