AsYou Desire Me by E.T. Aul

As You Desire Me: The Psychology of a Multiple Personality, E. T. Aul.  Alberta: J.W. White Publications Company, 2011,  ebook, 283 pps.

As You Desire Me is the autobiography of a Canadian woman who had endured childhood trauma.  Like many other stories of multiples that I had read, E.T. Aul's personality fractured into various alters and she went through tons of therapy.  Some of it helped and some of it was ineffective.  Unlike the other stories I had read, E.T. Aul had many well thought out things to say about psychotherapy and how the various expectations and prejudices of therapists can benefit or prove detrimental to the human being in distress.  

sapphoq reviews says: As You Desire Me should be required reading for college students studying to be therapists.  This book is especially valuable because it demonstrates how one woman had the courage to act on her own self-determination to be her own person in the midst of healing a system of personalities which came into being from severe childhood abuse.

Although in the States, it appears [to me] that the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder [the new name for M.P.D.] is once again falling into disfavor after a period of frenzied over-diagnosis, trauma survivors-- who have split their personalities into compartments and those who haven't-- deserve to have compassionate, ethical and competent treatment just like everyone else also deserves to have.  It is unfortunate [in my opinion] that much of what passes for therapy is actually an ill-founded attempt to mold patients into acceptability.  Progress ought to be measured by something more than "compliance."  It continues to be my belief that self-determination and self-empowerment are far more valuable than being nice, respectable, and grateful for the "help" offered by the public mental health system.