This is a free translation of a famous short story published at the beginning of the decade on a well-known American site of erotic tales.

—

Apart from the fact that I am a psychologist and that I really participated in the treatment of a patient with the psychological disorder known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), the rest, all: names, dates, places, facts are all fictitious just tô preserve the identity of the patient and also mine, since what happened involved me in a completely unexpected and inappropriate way.

In fact, if I revealed myself, the Psychology Council would prevent me from continuing tô practice psychoanalysis. I am a follower of the Lacanian line, I have also deepened over the years with works linked tô therapy under hypnosis in order tô help patients tô free themselves from their deepest, deepest and most intense fears.

As was the case with what I will call patient K here, let’s say my name is Jill Philips. At the time, about 8 years ago, I was 35 years old, I was already married with no c***dren.. I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a colleague referred me tô one of his patients, just the K. For professional reasons the patient was forced tô move tô another city and the treatment needed tô continue.

K had already been treated in Albuquerque for more than 3 years, with this disorder known as DID, more common than most people can imagine, but which affects more women than men. K, however, is a completely cured man now living in Colorado, even married.

Usually Dissociative Identity Disorder is related tô problems of abuse on the part of one or more relatives in c***dhood, but that can also occur in adolescence, was the case of my new patient.

To escape the stress caused by extremely conflicting situations, a person like this develops the ability tô assume a new identity and live that situation as if the other did not even exist, until a fact or a speech leads him tô change his identity.

Unlike most people who know who they are all the time, those who suffer from this type of disorder develop several different identities, the best known case, not least because it became a book and a film is the case Sybill’s, (fictional name Shirley Ardell Manson) a woman who had 16 different personalities, living in the same body and without any of them knowing the others.

K didn’t reach sómany variants, my colleague and I discovered that he developed 8 different personalities, spent 4 years in treatment, many times under hypnosis sóthat little by little it was possible that he was healed. The eighth personality or identity appeared only when K was already under my care. And it’s about the facts that happened with this last of K identity that I’m going tô report the following.

My colleague and I even published an article in the American Journal of Psychology about the treatment given tô our patient, citing all the personalities of K, including the last one. Without, however, revealing the details of what happened during many sessions… When K introduced me tô this strange identity.