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Hans Peter Søndergaard's comment [published in BJP 33(3) (2017) 418-21] on our article published in the November 2016 issue (Lesley & Varvin, 2016) appears to be a defence against what he believes is an attack on the very idea of dissociation and the idea that traumatic experience can cause dissociative reactions. It is largely concerned with his belief in the existence of the phenomenon of dissociation, especially of the personality - the existence of different identities alongside each other within a single person - and the efficacy of ‘trauma treatment’ based on dissociation theories. He appears to equate all such theories with the theory of structural dissociation. He provides evidence for the inefficacy of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapies and argues against what he appears to believe is our standpoint on dissociation - that is, that theories of dissociation are without basis in reality. Finally, he maintains he can see evidence of such phenomena, missed by the authors/therapist, within the subjects of the case studies presented in our article. This would be clear to the reader, he maintains, if the distinctions between observations, interpretations and interventions in the case vignettes were clearer.
Søndergaard's perception of our article as an objection to dissociation theories per se, including dissociation of the personality, needs correction. We thank him for the chance to clear up failings on our part to clearly present our case, or misconceptions on his part, that perhaps are shared by other readers.
Are we, springing from a psychoanalytic/psychodynamic foundation, ‘anti dissociation’? When writing this article, we wished to give voice to and illustrate our objections to a specific theory, the structural theory of dissociation. We have stated in our article that we are aware that:
(e)xtreme personification of walled off/dissociated experience is known to occur in some individuals, especially those exposed to extreme, repetitive and enduring traumatiz