From Melanie Goodwin:

When I talk about we I am referring to my internal family who have been completely supportive of this film. Remy was my main therapist and we ended therapy in 2019.

Before I floated the idea of making this film we all gave it a lot of thought. The actual idea came about after two books on dissociation that I have been quite heavily involved with made us all realise that we now experience a sense of a timeline, there is a before, now and future a concept that until relatively recently had not existed for us. We wanted to share our new, three dimensional way of being giving a much greater insight into our reality without compromising ourselves by needing to be explicit about what ‘happened’ to us.

Throughout my time with First Person Plural Kathryn my colleague and I aimed to demonstrate that we could share without needing to be what for us felt like voyeurism There is a place for a different sharing but in a learning environment we have always felt it is unhelpful. Gill Sandell who produce FPP’s two training films very early on in the projects helped us to understand the level of sharing needed to help explain a point without traumatizing and distracting from what we were trying convey. This has been and remains a very useful piece of advice that I use daily.

A Logical Way of Being, our first film was an enormous leap into the unknown. The fact that it won the International Society for Trauma and Dissociation Media Award in 2011 helped us to feel more confident that it really was going to be a resource that would become part of the international journey of getting DID better understood and recognized. Of course I glow when I hear it is still being used by trainers that I hold in high esteem but the real satisfaction came from other survivors. One lady e mailed and told me there was a bit when I spoke that was her go to place when she felt she could not go on and it helped her through the next hour. What an amazing privilege to have been able to do this.

We also had to be really honest with ourselves when thinking about this new project to ensure we were in a place that if Remy felt it was not a good idea, for whatever reason, we would be solid enough to accept this without a major implosion. This became anotherreassessment about where we are in our personal journey as it felt totally safe to float the idea and manage the consequences. As a whole we felt solid and mature but were absolutely delighted when I tentatively put forward the idea and he agreed to explore the possibility.

Having Jamie on board has been a vital, integral part of this project. I had worked with him several times, and had grown to appreciate how a psychiatrist’s view point complemented and enhanced an EbE (Expert By Experience) and a psychologist’s during training sessions. It always felt these days offered another dimension that was extremely powerful. The way Jamie held our filming together while bringing out his thinking alongside Remy’s and mine has been an important factor in how and to whom this film will be helpful.

There was quite a bit of planning beforehand but we wanted to be willing to trust the process, sounds familiar? We hoped the film would encapsulate the therapy journey, both each individual session and the full process by having a beginning, a middle and an end, based on a solid, working foundation that allowed us to revisit whenever necessary but from a slightly different angle. Having not over prepared allowed us each to be thoughtfully spontaneous, sounds a bit of a contradiction but it is about the natural flow. Of course welistened and were respectfully curious about what each other were saying; all these factors alongside very clear boundaries had been the corner stone to my journey with Remy. Writing this I realise that we had indeed put in boundaries, limits for the filming as well.

We had a lovely, two man crew managing all the techy side of things, they were discreetly observant and I felt very safe throughout the day. Making this film was one of the highlights of my whole life. To be with two such knowledgeable men, again I use this word deliberately, and to feel we were equals wanting to achieve something that not only for me rounded off my working life around DID but also my therapy journey and was achieved was so special.

We had thought we would try and produce a film about an hour long but when we came to watch it and to start editing we found we did not want to cut anything, is this egotistical, hopefully not? It is three people one with a lifetime of living with DID who had been fortunate to receive very good, DID focussed therapy for long enough for the work to be consolidated; another with many decades of working with it therapeutically and the third having such a genuine interest and passion for taking Remy’s and my work forward to the next generation sharing with each other and hopefully with many others who may find it helpful. What an absolutely amazing privilege to be able to do this.

From Jamie Wright:

I felt privileged when I was asked by Rémy and Melanie to join them in order to help facilitate this filmed conversation, reflecting on their therapeutic journey and on key issues relating to DID. I have had the pleasure of getting to know them both over the last few years and have learnt a lot from them. This includes, for example, having attended excellent training that Rémy arranged and co-facilitating a really meaningful dissociation awareness training with Melanie. The latter was a highly valuable chance to explore the same issues from different perspectives, from both lived and learnt experience. I was also struck by the depth of experience that Rémy brought and passion about a subject that I had previously had little exposure to. In fact, it was Rémy and Melanie who really taught me the importance of this subject, about trauma-based dissociation and DID. The more I knew what I was looking for, the more confidence I started to slowly build, the more I started to notice these issues in the patients that I see in my NHS work with young people. I was often struck by how these sorts of, sometimes extremely serious, mental health issues can remain so mysteriously hidden and confusing, even to the patient themself. It has become a particular interest of mine to gain further expertise in helping my patients unravel these mysteries together. I quickly started to realise that this is often no small feat.

One can immediately be met with enormous challenges. Perhaps they don’t even remember what we spoke about 5 minutes ago, or last time we met… have we even met? This could be about profound trust issues in those who have been abused and betrayed, perhaps by authority figures or those in caring roles. One minute I might be cast as the abuser, next minute it’s like I am needing to experience what it is like to be toyed with and feel utterly powerless. There can be profoundly challenging emotions and experiences stirred up in us clinicians, in the therapeutic work with people who experience severe dissociation. I once thought to myself, if I can’t even bear to truly hear what has happened to someone, hear that full story, what chance do they have actually living with it. Sometimes in my clinical work I have thought this is a dark, bleak world, full of pain, suffering, inhumanity, cruelty, and despair. Some days I hear about abuse after abuse, feeling hopeless about the enormity of the safeguarding issues involved. But then, I have seen what it can mean to be the first person someone trusts enough to open up to, and for steps to start to be taken to help keep people safe. The world around me, outside the consulting room can sometimes warp like a surrealist nightmare. Yet, and yet, I hold onto a deep faith that in being prepared to descend into these mirky depths alongside another human being and face this with them, we can emerge and truly discover the meaning of hope. It is as if by confronting these horrors, at times as if face to face with pure evil, I have repeatedly rediscovered the core goodness of mankind. Melanie speaks of the core part of her that “they could never get to”, perhaps her soul, whatever we want to call it, this remained. It is this sort of image that I hold onto. Faith. Hope. Humanity.

I think this filmed conversation is fundamentally about holding onto hope and coming together. Rarely do we get a chance to come together in this way and reflect from different perspectives, after such a meaningful piece of work and therapeutic journey has long been concluded. Rarely do we see where things can end up, if one never fully loses hope. I hope this video is of use and perhaps some inspiration to others, patients and therapists alike, when trying to navigate the sometimes treacherous and mirky waters of therapy.

Dr Jamie Wright, Consultant Psychiatrist & MBT Practitioner

From Rémy Aquarone:

Throughout the 4 decades that I have worked as a DID therapist, it has never felt ethically appropriate to produce any sort of video demonstrating the relationship between therapist and client or patient. The transference and counter transference relationship is, understandably, such a web of projections and interjections that such complicated relational dynamics can only be held in a boundaried and confidential space within the consulting room.

Furthemore there is the issue of the inevitable power inequality so that, in a good working alliance, any client or patient is likely to want to help and agree to a therapist’s invitation to be part of such a filmed production.

Below is an exchange of emails with Professor Eli Somer who is both a Psychologist and Researcher which I hope will answer some of the issues that this film may raise:-

[ Eli Somer: ES] Thank you for sharing this fascinating discussion, Rémy. I admire Melanie’s courage to expose herself and I know her journey can provide hope to many sufferers.

Did you have any ethical concerns about this joint appearance on YouTube? If so, I am curious how you have addressed them.

[Rémy Aquarone: RA] I have never ever considered that such a joint film looking back on by work with a client could ever be considered.

I have always been very sceptical of such arrangements while someone is in therapy. First of all because of the transference relationship, let alone which parts are giving consent and in any case the ongoing power inequality between the therapist and the client or patient can’t be resolved while in therapy.

This was a very different situation. The therapy had ended 7 years ago and it was Melanie who approached me asking if that might be possible. An added factor was that she had been involved with and co ran an organisation (First Person Plural) that promoted, alongside many senior clinicians in this country, the importance of partnership work.

Most crucial of all (as came over in the film) was her ability to respect the appropriate boundaries that needed to be in place, not only in therapy but at times when our paths might cross. (At conferences and joint training). With most clients, I would never have considered such a project.

Lastly, an important part of ending therapy (when possible) involves the ability to treat our ex clients as now grown up and having the ability (and trust from us) to make their own decisions.

So, in this instance, I didn’t and don’t have any ethical concerns. Incidentally the film is owned jointly by all 3 of us and is in the public domain to be distributed as anyone wants. It can’t be edited by anyone else and the option on YouTube to give comments is switched off apart from a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

[ES] Thanks for sharing your reflections on your decision to engage in a collaborative film project with your ex-client. Your careful consideration of the ethical dimensions and the unique circumstances surrounding this situation is evident.

The skepticism you describe about such arrangements during therapy is in line with my understanding of the vulnerabilities present within the therapeutic alliance. I find it commendable that you explicitly differentiate this instance from a therapeutic context, as the project occurred long after therapy concluded and was initiated by the ex-client herself.

It seems that Melanie’s understanding of professional and personal boundaries, as well as her willingness to engage as an equal collaborator, played a pivotal role in your decision. Your point about the significance of treating ex-clients as individuals capable of making informed decisions resonates strongly with the principles of therapeutic empowerment.

Still, what would your approach be if Melanie, as your former client, sought your help and asked to resume therapy?

[RA] Thanks for your comments, Eli.

Melanie does know that I stopped seeing clients for therapy about seven years ago. My professional cover now only applies to trainings, supervision, assessments and I off consultations.

Rémy Aquarone (he, him)
Director, Pottergate Centre for Dissociation & Trauma,
Member of BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council)
Past President ESTD
Past International Director ISSTD