ABSTRACT
Evidence is presented that those with abuse suffer a fragmentation of the self as indicated by patterns of extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviours. Furthermore, for some participants there was a psychotic transformation of states of the self generating new psychotic identities, for example, a person might believe that he or she had become a child again. Some specific psychotic identities or states may represent the transformation in adult years of a terrified part of the self formed in the context of child abuse. It is argued that an attacking voice may derive from explicit and implicit memories of the other, usually the abuser, and that such memories or schemas are contained by terrified part of self. A brief history of the idea of states of the self and psychosis is given. Some refugees spoke of no longer being the same person or self: it is argued that we can think of 1) a pre-trauma lived or enacted identity, 2) a post-trauma just about coping self, and 3) disturbed states or parts of the self. When the person experiences periods of increasing depression, even the just about coping self is suspended.
