The Crissing Link

The Crissing Link: Poetic License - List Price $24.00

184pp. Purchase through: Rev. Criss - CreateSpace - Amazon

Excerpts

Back Cover text

Poetic License is the introductory book in The Crissing Link series. Reverend Criss Ittermann, called The Crisses by those who know them best, takes us on a poetic journey through their head. We meet a small number of the women, men, children and non-humans who call a single woman's body home, have chosen to share their collective life together for better and for worse, and struggle with the language, ethics, gender-bending, and closets of a world full of humans so strangely and simply "single."

Sales of Poetic License $24.00 - $4 each US shipping and handling. Any required taxes are included and will be paid by the author when purchased directly through the author, but it will take longer to receive the book.

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Contact Rev. Criss for bulk orders. Please make it clear why you are requesting a bulk order (resale, library stock, gifts, special interest group, etc.), and I can issue a CreateSpace coupon for you or your group.

If you would like a copy signed & dedicated, please order directly from my website, and make sure to include a note for who you would like it signed to:

I need it shipped to me - USA orders (give PayPal your shipping information) $28 each
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At this time 10% of my income from the book will go to charities that prevent child abuse, or directly intervene on behalf of abused children. The first charity will be the Court Appointed Special Assistant program (CASA) in Orange County, NY that acts on behalf of children entering the foster care system in my local area. If the book does well, I will make donations to other organizations and increase the % of my direct proceeds that goes to charity. To increase the amount of your contribution to these causes, order the books directly from me rather than through Amazon.com. A good compromise is to order through CreateSpace, where I get a larger % of the proceeds.

You'll see what's shaping up to become the book United Front: Positive, proactive and collaborative self-help for people with multiple personalities in our Boot Camp.

However, the initial concept for Multiple Choice was that it would be a Q&A about intentionally living with multiple personalities -- but when I launched into my United Front blog posts, proactive posts for helping multiples become collaborative and cooperative inside, what started to emerge at first was a manifesto -- a type of Multiple Declaration of Internal Interdependence, if you will...

A year later, it occurs to me that the manifesto that began to emerge in my blog posts would be the backbone of my second book. So here's a taste of the types of things you might find in The Crissing Link: Multiple Choice: A manifesto on thriving with multiple personalities (in no particular order).

• Welcome to The Multiple Manifesto

I think what I'm going to do is a compromise between Manifesto & a Q&A at the end of the book or in an appendix. So, I'm still accepting questions, and this book is currently in-progress.

Please send me comments about what you like or dislike about the online Manifesto! Your comments may shape the future book before it's finished.

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1. Can’t we all just get along? - If our head were a house, how are we treating each other?
2. Hiring and Firing and Self-Advocacy - These days you're your best case manager -- or should be.
3. Is this therapy? (NO!) - This is a self-help tool for you to use with whomever you'd like, even alone.
4. Please wipe your feet before you come in - Reframing to a non-victim, non-blame mentality. Welcome, all!
   • Exercise: Starting Over - Making our shared residence (mind) a more hospitable place to live.
5. Being a Responsible Roommate - Being a responsible headmate in a system that's not functional.
6. Thanks for Washing the Dishes! - Gratitude is so powerful; we take the time to be grateful to our companions.
7. The bathroom is the first left down the hall - Headmaps, rudimentary and beyond. Exercise included.
8. Come back inside - Thoughts on the art of looking inside when you're fronting.
9. The problem with extremes - Handling perfectionism, procrastination, and using extremes to hold ourselves back.
10. We need to sit down and talk... - The idea of having internal meetings and taking roll calls.
    • Exercise: Meeting - Hold your first official meeting. Nothing big, just getting it done.
    • Exercise: Signing the Lease - Next meeting: creating a contract of participation in the program.
11. Always Lock the Door When You Leave - House rules - protecting the system inside and out.
12. Knives Point Down in the Dishwasher - House rules - personal & intrapersonal safety issues.
13. That's MY Shampoo! - Internal boundaries & respect.
14. Hey, my friend is coming over... - House Rules - Relationships of a variety of types need to be respected.
15. Ice cream is NOT a right; it's a privilege - Understanding the needs of the "bad guys" by way of our littles.
16. It's ok to have a party! - Time for a break and reflection.
    • How about some entertainment? - What do you do to keep yourselves occupied?
17. Can we talk this over? - Some specific notes on internal communication and some suggestions.
18. You Can't Make Me! - Encouraging others to follow the rules.
19. Who Stole My Money? - How to handle rule violations.
20. Don't Snoop in my Diary! Part I - More tips on building trust in the system.
21. Don't Snoop in my Diary! Part II - Precautions about digging up forgotten memories.
22. Please make yourself at home - Part 1 - Basic thoughts on internal landscapes.
23. You're really looking good today! - Internal landscape and cues that foster communication.
24. Please make yourself at home - Part 2 - Rudimentary through elaborate internal landscapes.
25. Dividing up the Chores - {Blog/DividingUpTheChores $Description}
26. You're always making me late! - Some ideas on "time management" and keeping track of time.
27. Where am I and what time is it? - On "losing time" -- what is it really?
28. Don't shove me around! - "Stealing front." Not the crime of the century after all...
29. We're so glad you could join us! - Helping stuck guests gain co-awareness.
30. Is this a home or a prison? - On sharing front versus stealing front.
31. Meetings, Part 2 - Meeting agendas - a review of boot camp posts.
32. I got you a present - What's all the work worth if you don't spread the wealth?
33. Taking out the Trash - More on "as outside, so inside (and vice versa)."
    • Let's get rid of the clutter - Cleansing as both healing and solidarity ritual.
    • Putting the pieces together - {Blog/PuttingThePiecesTogether $Description}
34. Barbed wire or white picket fence? - Different levels of boundaries and what they mean.
35. My family is coming over... - {Blog/MyFamilyIsComingOver $Description}

Welcome to United Front Boot Camp: Positive, proactive and collaborative self-help for people with multiple personalities.

Imagine if you could:

• shave years off of the so-called “recovery” process
• do it with or without an advisory therapist
• get more buy-in from your headmates
• move away from techniques that make you relive your most painful experiences
• develop confidence, trust, even love for one another
• And best of all, actively decide where you want to go from there

Imagine a world where it didn’t really matter that you’re a multiple. You have people in your head, and they all get along. In spite of your diverse ideas, skills and interests, you share a common goal and vision about your collective life. You each go about pursuing the dream in your own style, with your own unique perspective and gifts, but you’re all steering your life in the same direction.

That’s where I am. We are The Crisses, and I took almost 20 years of our shared life to get to that point. I don’t want it to take that long for you and your system, so I want to share my experience and self-help techniques with you. I want you to achieve a state of balance and joy. I want integration to be a true choice — rather than a necessity by default because you don't know of any alternatives.

You can take less than a year to accomplish what psychology can’t even accomplish in 5: a sense of inner community and cherishing, collaboration, love — and for the tough guys a warm acceptance even if you keep insisting that you’re a cool cat or an untouchable.

This program is for you if you:

• are doing OK on most days, but you know you need to do better
• have a lot of group buy-in on the idea that it’s time for change
• want to get along better, collaborate in a positive way on shared goals, and look forward to sharing the rest of your life together
• are truly motivated to do the work and expand your willpower to get things done even on days when you don’t feel like it
• you had to give up therapy because it was too expensive or you didn’t feel like you were getting anywhere
• are concerned because your therapist doesn’t specialize in MPD/DID (it works as a complementary program to therapy)
• refuse to see a therapist but you still want some help or guidance
• are a therapist looking for alternatives and information that is really specialized, upbeat, positive and proactive in working with a multiple system

I have ideas — lots of them — and I'm going to share them with you. But you are going to be the one doing this work. I have the tools, and you just need to be committed to following the process.*

Sometimes it's hard to know where to start, so check out the steps below, and feel free to comment or email us with questions.

In June (and maybe July) 2011, I'm blogging the Boot Camp steps. But this is where you can go to take everything one step at a time. Eventually I'll have a little quiz you can take to figure out which steps in the Boot Camp you really need, but this month I'm focusing on posting the steps.

Start Boot Camp!

(List of Boot Camp Steps with descriptions)

I'm still posting the rest of the steps, so in the meantime, why don't you read the Manifesto?

Are you in the field of psychology in any way, shape or form? Please see A special note for therapists.

* If you want to be held accountable in this process, and don't have an accountability partner, you might opt for life coaching with The Crisses (Criss Ittermann) using United Front as the core curriculum. Email us and we'll have a conversation about it.

Would you like to turn your whole life around with minimal help from psychologists and the therapy tactics that take a decade to make a big difference?

Welcome to radical ideas for people with multiple personality disorder (aka dissociative identity disorder and DDNOS), trauma, abuse survivors and people with PTSD.

An excerpt from The Multiple Manifesto!

What if we could be sane without worrying about digging up our past, without being in treatment for years, without worrying about what people think, without giving in, without giving up on ourselves, without hating ourselves, without making the situation worse before it gets better, without twiddling our thumbs for years based on therapies that are inhumane and when you think about it make absolutely no sense. Let’s not hold out on having sanity until the “good doctor” can see us again!

Come get a taste of the Manifesto!

Latest Blog Entry

Just about 10 years ago, I came to the startling theoretical conclusion that multiples operate strongly by the principle "As outside, so inside." This principle works in so many applications in the world, but none so startling as multiples. How can multiples get along in the external consensual reality, if they cannot get along amongst themselves in the internal, subjective reality? The amount of transference, sublimation, mirroring, etc. is so prevalent, it's uncanny. And I expanded my little principle to say As outside, so inside (and vice versa) because effecting change in one arena of life can effect change in the other. Another way of putting this: for a multiple to get along with ease and love in the world, they must get along with ease and love in their head, and vice versa. This principle and my self-observations and intimate knowledge of many multiple systems inform my suggestions, primarily encouraging a healthier internal community, in the United Front Boot Camp. I have no doubt that clients will have healthier and happier external relationships if their internal relationships improve, and once relationships improve everything else follows.

In the paradigms I outline, we turn away from Freudian talk-therapy techniques and turn to self-help and life coaching techniques (some of which are based on cognitive-behavioral, gestalt, and humanistic psychology, social intelligence, family systems theory, and choice theory) as the basic methodology. We take the social skills commonly accepted in the external or “consensual” world outside our bodies, and use them as a paradigm to influence our internal relationships, our subjective reality, in which we are not only a multi-faceted entity, we are a group of separate entities confined in the single body with all the constraints, legal and logistical, that that imposes upon us.

If you are familiar with internal family systems theory, with Jungian paradigms of anima/animus and internalization of archetypes, or even with Freudian’s model of the Id, Ego & Superego, then you are familiar with the rich history of psychology acknowledging that nearly everyone consists of separate internal-reality “parts.” Since your clients experience these so-called “parts” as entire people, often with a very rich fabric of belief, talents, religious ideologies, memories, emotional ranges, speech patterns, habits, etc. that closely mirror those of unique and autonomous people, it is prudent to meet them on their turf rather than argue them out of their paradigm (one that presumably works for them even if psychology does not agree).

How does it help the client's internal relationships if you create tension and adversity by telling them they are "not real people"? Does that serve a therapeutic purpose? This attempt to belittle and distance the internal entities from one another creates a "Holier than thou" relationship between the therapist and client (once "patient"), and also between the internal citizens of your client's mind. You de-humanize them. You undermine their nearly non-existent self-esteem, you create immense potholes in what needs to be a more level playing field. To what end? The end is a power struggle and an attempt for one alter to force their will on the other alters, or to create a group of "good" alters versus the group of "bad" alters. Here's where choice theory (Glasser) comes into play: coercion will not get you anywhere fast. You create an atmosphere where the internals can do nothing more than rebel, act-out, become demoralized and depressed, resist treatment and moreover resist change. Add to this relationship the constant regurgitation of past trauma, over which these internals may have a great deal of guilt, and you've created a therapeutic paradigm full of pain and years(!) of treatment. It's simply INHUMANE.

Society resists acknowledging these internal entities as people, and you happily reinforce this dehumanizing paradigm. Please stop. Whatever your personal or professional beliefs, you should not force the dogma of society and psychology on the client unless it will actually assist the therapeutic relationship. No amount of coercion is likely to reduce the subjective experience of these entities as actual people, and given the complexity of working with the multiple, I think we all have better things to do than argue what is technically a philosophical standpoint to the point of engendering very deep client resistance and abolishing client rapport (both inside and outside the system). In my program, I insist on treating all residents as humanely and equably as possible. It works for me, I've seen it work for other multiples, and I won’t change my language of respect to humor current thought in psychology which as an organized entity is not much more than 100 years old and could change on a dime.

If you can deal with this point-of-view that may conflict with your learning on the subject, your clients can work through the United Front Boot Camp and get assistance from you while using the program tools between the steps on an as-needed basis. They can progress as quickly or slowly as they like or are capable of.

This program is a much more humane launching point than therapy techniques that require bringing up the past and attempting to "solve" past traumas to move forward. That's like steering a ship from New York to London by going from New York to Greenland to Boston to Iceland to Nova Scotia to Ireland to Greenland to London. Just when you think you're making progress, you backtrack to something painful and make it happen again today, throwing the multiple system into shock and undoing forward progress, then working through the mess that's been brought up over and over again until the person is desensitized. The question arises as to whether you’re really solving anything or if you’re getting the client so used to pain that they become numbed to the trauma. This form of "talk therapy" reeks of outdated Freudian techniques, and prolongs treatment, while being considered essentially ineffective especially in the modern "get it over with as quickly as possible" healthcare climate. I agree there may be a few traumatic moments that the multiple wants to -- or loves to -- rehash, but that should not be considered a therapeutic technique. It's a stalling technique, at best. A form of avoiding current reality and an uncertain future for the comfort of the helplessness of the past. If you need me to explain that reality in more graphic detail, feel free to give me a call. Suffice to say, living in the past is no way to prepare for a healthy and happy future. Don't allow your client to suck you into that paradigm.

If your client is having intrusive encounters with past events as evidence of PTSD, then I recommend dealing with that separately but in conjunction with working through this program. Please cut to the chase by considering alternative therapies for treatment of PTSD. As one example, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is very effective in working with PTSD. Even if you don't believe in EFT, if it allows your client to get over invasive symptoms quickly and thoroughly, it doesn't matter what the scientific basis of it is -- even if it's just the placebo effect. Anything that can reliably trigger even the placebo effect is effective! Use a sugar pill if it gets the job done. You've just cured PTSD sympoms in a few minutes to an hour. It's the healing itself that matters, not whether the methodology is proven to work in a laboratory or research setting. Please don't let our society’s study of science blind you to the need of your individual client for help and healing, and freedom from emotional and mental suffering in as safe, expeditious and permanent a way as is possible. If EFT can create lasting progress in less than an hour without additional money and completely without side effects, why does anyone resist it? Same goes for EMDR or any other chemical-free neuro-reprogramming techniques, with the exception of hypnosis. It's my personal and professional (as a life coach & multiple) opinion that multiples in general are much too susceptible to the dissociative states to rely on hypnogogic states for therapeutic benefit, and I personally steer very clear of having others hypnotize me, to the point of "sitting out" of all meditative exercises (past life regression, relaxation exercises, etc.) at conferences and workshops.

When a client has no current PTSD symptoms, please don't encourage PTSD by digging through the past. At least wait to work in that paradigm until after going through the United Front system. We will help your client build a firm foundation of internal organization, ability to track time, a consensus-building environment, firm rules and ways to enforce them. After the foundation is built, discuss with your client whether digging up past traumas is necessary and desirable for other reasons. With the better coping strategies, self-awareness, and spirit of internal teamwork that will be achieved through this program, perhaps the chance of triggering PTSD while doing any abreactive work you agree is necessary can be avoided entirely.

The primary need of a multiple in crisis is to return to a level of normalcy that allows functioning in family and society. That is not the appropriate time to spend years poking around for hidden residents or for digging up traumas. Neither of these techniques return the multiple to functionality directly, more it does so by accident over the course of years via the long route to London. I request that you not consider "being normal" more important than "being functional." I would rather be a contented functioning and even productive member of society and able to follow my passions as a multiple entity than spend more years being dysfunctional traumatized trigger-happy depressed and anxious in order to come out "normal" on the other side while dragging my family through my trauma. Let's prioritize this correctly: your client needs to achieve a certain level of co-awareness, co-consciousness, collaboration and communication in order to integrate AND in order to function in spite of being multiple. I'm offering tools to start on a different pathway to get there that leads to far less chaos along the way. Cutting out the time-wasting years to achieve functionality is a more expeditious path for any client end goal.

To those who don’t want to even the playing field by accepting 100% group responsibility: We may not be 100% in control, but we are still 100% responsible for what we do. I want to make this clear to those in the shadows: when you mess something up, you’re messing it up for everyone.

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To book authors, movie directors, screenplay writers, actors, readers, movie-goers, and others who are part of our so-called fan-base who love when our differences are put on parade; you don’t know us. Stop pretending.

You have no idea who we are, what it’s like, what being multiple "really" looks like. You think of instant wardrobe changes like Clark Kent coming out of a telephone booth in his Superman leotard, or perhaps you see stark and outstanding shifts as portrayed in the movies, or some anti-establishment Fight Club cult leader, and you don’t try not even a little bit to be realistic about it. You continue to make a mockery of our lives, explode them into made-for-TV mockumentaries and box-office exploding ticket machines at our expense, continue to fabricate this fiction and this fear and this hatred at who and what we are, and blow out of proportion our level of self-control and self-knowledge and inner policing, and continue to blow our lives out of proportion — because frankly the truth is pretty boring.

Next: "On Group Responsibility"

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And to our detractors, to the therapists, to the experimenters, the researchers, those who wish to take a census, those who want to victimize us again: There’s more of us out there than you’ll ever know. Many of us hide from you, or you’ve made us feel embarrassed by your closely-defined boxes that try to rigidly define us, or perhaps we’re blissfully unaware no matter how many times we found new clothes in our closet we swear we never bought and we refuse to closely scrutinize the charges on our credit card. Those of us who were victimized before refuse to get caught again, and guess what? It’s our right. Perhaps we don’t need your blessings, your justification, your ridicule, your treatment plans, your medications, your denial, your covering up for the abusers, your brainwashing, your cubby-holing, your insistence that we aren’t people, your insistence that we conform. You can take your FMS and your ISSD and your MPD and your DID and you can put them away because we’re perfectly capable of sorting things out without your help, without your excuses, without your dogmas and your theories.

You can claim that we don't exist, that we're the manufacture of psychologists, that memories cannot be hidden away then later rediscovered, that there are not as many people out there abusing children as statistics would have you believe, that we're just looking for attention, that we're victims not of childhood abuse but of psychology's greed and need to be the hero in the arena of severe mental illness.

However, those are just your claims, and no amount of proof from any organization is going to change the fact that when I look inside and see my internal family, I smile. Every day I wake up and live my life with my most favorite friends on the planet.

Every day we look on our collective dreams and hopes and desires and come up with a plan for how to keep going and tackle breaking that big joyous goal into manageable steps and activities. Then we delegate the tasks and get on with our day. All of this takes place mostly subconsciously in the span of a few breaths.

We are a modern marvel of communication and productivity. We are a force to be reckoned with. We are every corporation's CEO's wet dream for an assistant, because we can get stuff done, we can handle any task or problem thrown at us, we learn faster than our singleton peers, we have a swiss-army-knife of skills and personae for any situation that life hands us, and while it's not the best idea, we can multitask quite well, as long as it can be handled by a single body. Once we get over our weak points and our frailties, learn how to handle stress and keep from getting overwhelmed, we're precious beings who love to use our unique strengths.

And you won't find that as the prize in the psychology cracker-jack-box.

Next: "To the Authors"

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