Book description
In 1989 a woman named Karen showed up at author and psychiatrist
Richard Baer's practice, terribly frightened and at breaking point.
She explained that her husband beat her, her mother stole from her;
she was in tremendous physical pain and wanted to die. Within a few
sessions she also revealed that her father and grandfather had raped
and tortured her repeatedly over the course of her childhood,
frequently in the company of other neighbourhood men. She was now
married with two children, but often could not account for stretches
of minutes, hours, sometimes even days.
As Karen's story unfolded over the following months, Baer realised
that he was dealing with a severe case of Multiple Personality
Disorder. Although it would take time and deep, hard-won trust before
any of Karen's alternated personalities presented themselves in her
psychiatrist's office, over the next five years Baer would encounter
seventeen distinct personalities, all of whom had been living inside
Karen since she was a young child, shielding her from an otherwise
unbearable life.
In the tradition of Oliver Saks and Irvin Yalom, Baer chronicles his
nine years of work with Karen and all her distinct personalities, his
often futile efforts to use the tools of his trade, and his patient's
ultimate invention of her own cure. An unforgettable story of
unimaginable suffering and ultimate recovery, A Life In Pieces: How
One Woman's Personality was Shattered by Years of Abuse is the
first account of life with Multiple Personality Disorder written by
the treating psychiatrist.
A Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association,
Richard Baer, M. D. is also the former head of the Illinois Psychiatric
Society; after several decades in practice as a psychiatrist he received
a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Northwestern University.
Karen, Baer's Multiple Personality Disoder patient, has been well for
over seven years now.
