ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the clinical implications of a psychotherapist either believing or not believing a dissociative identity disorder patient's memories of extreme abuse and the effect that the therapist's response may have on the patient. The reliability of memories has been especially questioned when the memories have not been held in continuous awareness. In the case of infant trauma that was ongoing and severe and perhaps inflicted by caregivers, the traumatic experience itself will have had a major formative effect on the emerging psychic structure. Unfortunately, when a patient describes a traumatic experience without showing any apparent emotion, it can make the listener doubt whether the patient is telling the truth. In cases of organized and multi-perpetrator abuse when the abuse occurs in the context of rituals and ceremonies, some elements of the experience may have been staged specifically with the intention of encouraging the disbelief of others if the victim were to report the crime.
