treatment center in Dallas

[pilgrimchild.livejournal.com]

Has anyone here been to Timberlawn in Dallas texas in their trauma/DID program? If so can you let me know if it was helpful and what the program was like? As much information as you can please. I am looking into it. very nervous.
please please i hope i can get some info. i've been to their website. my therapist has visited there for me and liked the program. but i want to know what REAL people think.

Comments

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

You may have more luck at fragmentedminds and/or abuse/trauma communities. Not sure how many people here will have DID at all, never mind had any therapy for it.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Timberlawn is run by Dr. Colin Ross, a consummate politician who goes whichever way the prevailing academic wind seems to be blowing on whether or not multiplicity is real. Currently, he sees it as "an elaborate form of pretending".

Learn more about Colin Ross and his programs here:
http://www.rossinst.com/index.htm

The Timberlawn website (http://www.timberlawn.com/trauma.htm) says, "The treatment team members work collaboratively emphasizing acute stabilization, improved functioning and self management for the chronic, high cost, high utilization patient with extensive comorbidity."

Translation: "This service is for people who just think they're sick and are using that as an excuse to cop out on life and who have been sponging off their families and insurance companies and making people's lives in general a living hell. We teach them to shut up and do as they're told and go out and get a job in the real world. Fortunately the program only lasts about two or three weeks, so we don't put up with you losers any longer than we just have to."

Most so-called trauma/DID programs today are extremely behaviorist. You are likely to be told that you are not really multiple but that you have merely given names to aspects of your own, single personality. You will be required to dress and behave exactly as you are told, and treated like more or less of a human being depending on how well you comply.

It is also likely in many such places -- I don't know if Ross does this or not -- that if you present as multiple, you will be diagnosed as psychotic. This is an increasing trend among mental health professionals and one you would do well to avoid. Even if you are not diagnosed with a thought disorder, they are now giving antipsychotic drugs to multiples and other non-thought-disordered people. In tiny doses, these drugs supposedly work as a "mood stabilizer" and we have heard a very few reports that some people have done very well with tiny doses indeed. However, there's no guarantee that the doses will remain small, and in any case it will go on your record that you've been on antipsychotics, and this will be seen by your insurance company and possibly by future employers as well as therapists, so caveat.

There is no way to tell what these places are really like from anyone who has not been inside, and what I said above is a guess based on reports from people who have been inside similar establishments. Billy Milligan^Alan recommends that people with genuine problems with multiplicity stay away from Del Amo, which is also run by Dr. Ross and which Ross claims uses precisely the same treatment programme. You need to hear from people who have been through the Ross programmes. What is really needed is a "Consumer Reports" of such places, with a rating system.
Current mood: cynical
Current music: birdcall sound events

[http://users.livejournal.com/_the_little_one/]

that sounds horrible

the only place i've been 'in' wasn't specialized at all and sort of ended up apologizing for it - the two facilites are run by the same system and i got sent to 'adult crisis stablization in the suburbs' not 'trauma and dissasociation in the city' due to a clerical error and then they couldn't fix it because the trauma place was full

they were mostly nice to me

the biggest problem was when they thought my complaints about my roommate were MY symtoms then realized some of what she was up to and admitted that "Rooomie' had too many anti-social symtoms to have a roommate

[http://users.livejournal.com/_the_little_one/]

i forgot to say - i'm from alt grrl

[etana.livejournal.com]

I went to a therapist that asked me if I wanted drugs adn I said yes because i'm a big loser and wanted free drugs from ths university health center so she sent me to the psychiatrist who was this wretched indian woman who shouted loud enough to alert the entire lobby that i was fucking crazy then she proceded to prescribe me a cocktail involving anty-psychs. haha. i told her i couldn't survive without alcohol so i wouldn't be able to take her drugs. fucking psychos themselves!

Yes, but it was at his former site (Charter in Plano)

[(Anonymous)]

It is not really worth it. There were some things that were helpful, but I was a very high functioning DDNOS, so I really didn't fit in well on that particular unit, so was transferred to a sexual trauma unit. I went to some of the groups led by Colin Ross, but was not particularly impressed. My therapist no longer sends clients to inpatient because it is just not really worth it unless you are in imminent danger to yourself or others. They often leave you hanging in dissociated states after groups and that is dangerous. They just move on to their next thing...la...la..la....so, my advice? Don't go unless it is absolutely neccessary for your life.