The Flock
The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality
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4.1 • 14 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The groundbreaking first-person account of successful recovery from dissociative identity disorder, now featuring a new preface by the author
When Joan Frances Casey, a married twenty-six-year-old graduate student, “awoke” on the ledge of a building ready to jump, it wasn’t the first time she couldn’t explain her whereabouts. Soon after, Lynn Wilson, an experienced psychiatric social worker, diagnosed Joan with multiple personality disorder. She prescribed a radical program of reparenting therapy to individually treat her patient’s twenty-four separate personalities. As Lynn came to know Joan’s distinct selves—Josie, the self-destructive toddler; Rusty, the motherless boy; Renee, the people pleaser—she uncovered a pattern of emotional and physical abuse that had nearly consumed a remarkable young woman.
Praise for The Flock
“A testimony to [Casey’s] courage and the dedication of her therapist, who believed that a profoundly fragmented self has the capacity to heal within a loving therapeutic relationship.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Absolutely mesmerizing . . . the first coherent autobiographical study of its kind.”—The Detroit News
“A compelling psychological odyssey offering unique insights into a nightmare world.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Extraordinary . . . deftly told and studded with striking images.”—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this extraordinary, convincing account of her psychological fragmentation and arduous journey toward wholeness, the pseudonymous Casey displays the impulse toward health that seems a driving force of nature. She begins her story, with all names and locations changed, at the University of Chicago, where, as a graduate student, she sought counseling in 1981. Unlike Casey's previous experiences of quick-fix therapy, this time the psychotherapist, Wilson, proved a sensitive listener. Casey soon revealed her secret names, marking different selves with distinct memories and, as observed by Wilson, distinct voices, postures and expressions. Originally opposed to Wilson's diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder, Casey embraced it during her struggles over the four-year course of intensive therapy, through stages of cooperation, opposition and even sabotage among selves that included the competent Renee, scholar Joan, self-destructive Josie, self-possessed Kendra and Rusty, a boy. Wilson's interspersed notes, covering her concerns as she extended therapy beyond the office and included her husband, a high school teacher, in the ``reparenting'' of each of Casey's personalities, offer a balancing perspective. Deftly told and studded with striking images, Casey's story--distinguished by her intelligence and courage and by Wilson's unremitting patience and compassion--witnesses equally the power of cruelty and indifference to damage children profoundly, and the capacity of love and hard work to heal. Casey is now a university professor. Literary Guild alternate.
