AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

I have just finished reading an excellent book,"Speak But the Word…From Multiple Personalities to Wholeness" by Leilani Claire. It is the extraordinary story of the healing journey of how the author - who had 25 personalities - through years of intensive psychotherapy came to a place of wholeness, a final integration. She also describes - which is extremely rare in the literature - what it was like to live in the world for seven years after the ceremony of final integration without being able to use her dissociative adaptations and defenses. Leilani Clare's intention in writing this book was to be helpful to psychotherapists who are treating multiple personalities and to be a source of hope for other multiples who are still struggling wondering what is possible. From my perspective the book can be beneficial beneficial also for other therapists ,like myself, who don't work with multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder, but who do work with clients dealing with severe childhood physical abuse and/or sexual violation. And for those of us who will be intrigued by the reflections it evokes about the big question,"What is consciousness?"
This blog entry is not intended as a review, but rather as a description of what the book entails and an encouragement to read it.
The initial sections of the book are presented in the format of letters written by two "host" personalities to the original personality to prepare her for integration. These letters describe the history of early sexual abuses starting at the age of three and the roles that each of the 25 personalities have played in the fifty years of life since the initial abuse. It describes then the final integration ceremony, which Leilani Claire calls "the Sacred Marriage", a "wedding of the soul." The last section is a series of yearly reports discussing what life was like for Leilani Claire for each of the seven years after the final integration.
What deeply enriches the book are the inclusion of many paintings - done by Leilani Claire who is an accomplished artist - of the different personalities at various moments throughout the six years of her psychotherapy. In addition. there are also a number of photographs of her from the age of three up to several years after the Sacred Marriage ceremony.
While she was in the process of finding a publisher for her manuscript Leilani Claire was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer. It progressed rapidly. Near the end she contacted her psychotherapist Stephen Merriman PhD, who is the publisher of Four Rivers Press, and asked if he would take on the publication of her book. Knowing how important it was to her, he agreed. He also wrote the Foreword.
Stephen is a dear friend of mine and that is how I became aware of this important work. While reading it I decided that I wanted to help Leilani Claire tell her story to the many people who could benefit from it. That is why I've written this blog entry.


For more about "Speak But the Word…From Multiple Personalities To Wholeness" go to www.fourriverspress.com