UNDERSTANDING THE PHENOMEMOLOGY OF SRA/DID

and likeness of the being created by God signified existence in confrontation, i.e., in this confrontation, in the juxtaposition and conjunction of man and man which is that of male and female, and then to go on to ask against this background in what the original and prototype of the divine existence of the Creator consists?" (K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, New York: Scribner, l956, 3/l, p. l95). We may conclude from these passages from Genesis that God (plural of trinity) speaks and creates in unity as one Godhead; that man is created in the image (sing.) and likeness (sing.) of God as to his unified essence and nature. Man as a created being in his unified essence and nature, is a plurality of expression as male and female. As individuals, both male and female have the capacity to manifest our unified essence and nature through our personalities in great diversity of thought, communication, creativity and self-determination.

The point I want to emphasize is that man, created in the image and likeness of God, is a unity of essence but expresses that essence in plurality as mentioned above. This plurality or diversity of expression is designed by the triune Godhead to be expressed through a unified or a whole personality and identity.

When a person is subjected to chronic abuse in early childhood his/her personality and identity is fragmented. This fragmentation of the identity and personality does not destroy the underlying nature and essence of that person created in the image of God. I have discovered in the process of my work with SRA/DID clients, that wherever there is a plurality of phenomena presenting within the context of their dissociation, there is always a unifying essence, center, source, and beginning of whatever the dissociative/phenomenological metaphor may be. To help understand what I am seeking to communicate, I will give you several examples of how this principle of man, created in the image of God, applies when working within the phenomenological context of SRA/DID.

Illustration #1: Your client describes that they see a castle within their program structure. I ask them to tell me if there are any parts off their humanity contained within the castle (the answer is usually yes). Then I ask how many, and they may say l2. I immediately know, based on the fact that man is created in the image of God, that the reference to l2 is an example

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