International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019 47
memory. The failure to maintain the integrity of
the memory leads to the reexperiencing of
fragments whenever one encounters trauma
reminders.
When she was reexperiencing a trauma memory,
Sarah would experience each fragment as
though it were occurring in real time. She most
frequently provided a sound that she recalled
during the early morning hours, or that
awakened her in the middle of the night. She
described these instances as moments when she
heard a voice or a scream in real time. Sarah said
that she was aware that these experiences were
not occurring in real time only because she had
become accustomed to pausing and grounding
herself in the room, recognizing that the
experience was not actively occurring but was in
fact a piece of the past.
When Sarah was processing these auditory
memories, I asked her to recall whether any
other fragments were attached to this portion of
the memory. I asked that she sit with the sound
for a moment and recall whether there was a
smell, sight, tactile sensation, or taste associated
with it. Sarah often recalled additional somatic
experience associated with the traumatic
experience, and we used these pieces of
information to construct a narrative of the event.
I would then record in writing the details Sarah
provided regarding the event, Sarah’s
approximate age at the time the event occurred,
and any contextual variables such as location
and persons involved. Recording remembered
events helped Sarah to create a larger timeline of
events, thus contributing to the trauma narrative
of her childhood and adolescence.
Phase 2: Honoring, Deriving Meaning From,
and Grieving the Voices of “Alters”
Herman’s (2015/1992) phase 2 of the triphasic
model aims to help the client grieve the losses
associated with the trauma and derive a sense of
meaning from their suffering. After the initial
five to six sessions focused on developing
resources, Sarah’s trauma processing began. It
was at this time that she informed me she had
“alters,” or alternate personalities. She
concurrently identified and acknowledged the
alters during the processing of her memories.
She described these alters as ranging from
“violently angry” to “incredibly sad,” and that
they each carried specific memories from
difficult traumatic experiences. Each alter was a
version of Sarah at a specific age, which was
created during a traumatic experience facilitated
by the programmers, whom Sarah identified as
members of her mother’s cults tasked with using
torture to create dissociative states in children to
ensure that they would not remember the abuse.
Sarah’s description of dissociative states seemed
to follow the course of psychological
decompensation associated with dissociative
identity disorder (DID) because her outward
expression of multiple identities seems to have
been triggered by her removal from the
traumatic situation. Sarah described a dramatic
increase in the experience of derealization and
depersonalization following her move from the
community and state in which her mother lived
to a new community in a new state, with all
connections to former family and friends
severed. Although Sarah had never been
formally diagnosed with DID, she had described
symptoms that meet the diagnostic criteria.
Sarah reported more than two distinct
personality states that she called “alters.” When
switching between personalities, Sarah described
having varying levels of awareness of the
transition from one personality to the next. She
said that when she switched to those alters with
whom her primary personality “is more merged”
(the primary or host personality being Sarah),
her host personality remained cognizant of the
alters’ actions. She described one current alter,
however, who had conversations with her
husband at night that were completely out of her
awareness. Following an evening episode with
this alter, whom Sarah called “Roe,” she brought
her husband to session to discuss his experiences
with Roe. It was during this session that Sarah
shared about gaps in memory, specifically in the
evenings, and she shared her distress and fear
about “not having control ...I don’t know what
I’m doing then.” Sarah’s symptoms did not
appear to be associated with any substance use,
medical condition, or religious or cultural
practice thus, the aforementioned symptoms
meet the diagnostic criteria for DID (APA,
2013). We discussed the symptoms and
diagnosis of DID during multiple sessions, but

48 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
Sarah determined that the diagnosis would not
be helpful for her because she attributed her
symptoms to the programming she experienced
in the cult. She stated that she wished to work
toward merging her alters with her primary
personality.
Sarah’s most prominent alter was Fred, a young
man about age 10 who “lives in a library in my
head.” She described Fred as coming into
existence during a sexual assault during which
the perpetrator repeatedly stated that “girls can’t
do anything ...they’re only good for sex.” Fred
then took over the counseling session, stating
that he had switched with Sarah, the “shell
personality” that “holds us.” He then described
the sexual assault in greater detail, and how he
came into existence during that violent sexual
assault to protect Sarah from the experience.
Fred also allowed Sarah to deny the many
negative statements made by cult members
about her worth as a female. When cult members
or “customers” would degrade Sarah, she said
Fred would assume the primary personality and
tell everyone that she was not a girl, so those
things “did not apply to me.” Sara identified
customers as the individuals whom “my mom
trafficked me to.” These individuals provided
Sarah’s mother “with drugs” in exchange for sex
with her daughter, sex that Sarah described as
violent and “sick.”
Throughout treatment, Sarah identified alters
who “held specific memories.” Whenever a new
memory surfaced, her recall of fragments of the
memory brought the alter into an awareness of
who held the memory. Sarah said that she had
given most of the alters names, but that some of
them had informed her of their name. One alter
named Mangle held immense pain, especially in
her feet and left side of her face. Mangle stated
that she was 6 years old. During session, Sarah
asked to bring Mangle into the room. Upon
switching with the primary personality, Mangle
began rocking back and forth as if to self-soothe.
While rocking, Mangle began shaking her head
left to right as though her head were on a swivel.
She made no eye contact with me, and she
recalled torture that included “being drugged,”
then laid down on a table and having needles
placed underneath her toenails. She said that the
left side of her face hurt terribly, that the light in
the room hurt her eyes, and there was “just so
much pain.” Mangle sat with me for about ten
minutes, then asked in a fearful voice to leave
because she couldn’t “take any more pain.”
Mangle then switched back to Sarah, who
reported being an observer to Mangle’s pain and
behavior in the session. Sarah stated again that,
other than her experiences with alter Roe, her
primary personality “rarely fully goes away”
when she switches to another alter.
Switching in session became a routine
experience because Sarah said that allowing her
alters to speak encouraged them to “merge with
me.” She stated that previous alters, including
the most violent and angry alter, had merged
with her primary self. She identified the merging
process as one that enabled alters to process the
memories and pain they carried, which then
allowed them to become one with Sarah. When
their voices were heard, Sarah no longer needed
them to protect her by holding the suffering in a
separate space outside of her awareness.
Phase 3: New Awareness
Sarah’s acknowledgement of alternate versions
of the self and embrace of the emotions and
body memories they carried created new
awareness. After switching and processing the
alters’ material in session, Sarah’s primary
personality described remembering each of the
alter’s memories with vivid clarity. Sarah
reported a new sense of wholeness and physical
integrity after each alter had merged with her
primary self.
Sarah celebrated the loss of each alter
personality while grieving the loss of her
childhood, and of healthy attachment to the
persons tasked with caring for her child self.
Remembering the role her mother played in her
abuse had caused Sarah to question what it
means to be a mother. She reframed experiences
with her mom as “teaching me what not to do as
a parent,” and she cried when discussing the
loving bond between herself and her two
daughters.
One of Sarah’s primary fears was that her
mother or former cult members would find her
and carry out the threats they made about