Negative Therapeutic Reaction and Stuck Cases: Mind Control Transference in the Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder

The mind control (invasion) transference (MCT) is an extreme form of traumatic transference in patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and related very severe, complex dissociative trauma disorders. It is defined as he patient’s belief that the therapist’s overt helpfulness and concern is really in the interest of gaining access to the patient’s mind in order to malevolently invade and control the patient psychologically. To some extent, all DID patients have some aspect of this type of transference. This is because coercive control is at the center of the type of extreme, tortuous perpetration that most DID patients report experiencing. The MCT becomes a dominant transference in several specific clinical situations, that are not mutually exclusive: 1) Intra- or extra-familial childhood perpetrators that are mental health clinicians, who use “therapy” like techniques, including hypnosis as part of childhood abuse, and/or are psychologically extremely intrusive. 2) Parents with DID who are psychologically invasive and consciously or not invade the child’s mind, often to access, control, or create self-states that correspond in some way to their own. 3) Sadistic abusers, often in organized groups, with a variety of manifest belief systems, who focus on complete enslavement of victims using extreme torture to dominate, control, completely abase, and humiliate victims, and to create automatic obedience. 4) Patients who have been abused psychologically as adults by mental health providers, often involving sexual victimization, where the perpetrator uses psychological techniques to control, dominate, and humiliate victims. Many victims of these types of abuse may continue to be victimized/revictimized and/or trafficked by perpetrators into adulthood. They are often susceptible to intimate partner violence with extreme coercive control, and may be particularly vulnerable to coercively controlling mental health providers. For many of these patients, psychotherapy, especially by providers knowledgeable about dissociation, may be experienced as another attempt at mind control/invasion for the purpose of enslavement. This may lead to a myriad of seemingly endless impediments to progress in treatment. In this presentation, I will describe the MCT, and mind-control countertransference, in depth, and how both manifest in psychotherapy. I will discuss clinical interventions that can assist therapy to move forward – if only very slowly - particularly if there has been superimposed revictimization in adulthood by mental health providers.

This course is based on the recorded webinar, Negative Therapeutic Reaction and Stuck Cases: Mind Control Transference in the Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder created by Richard Loewenstein, MD in 2018.