Customer Reviews

The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I found this book to be comforting in a way that only people with DID/MPD can understand. Of course no one wants anyone to suffer with such an illness, however when you also suffer from the illness a book with this much sensitivity and courage is amazing. The author never needed to go into graphic detail of her abuse, that made this book safe for me. Her story gave me hope in my journey to recovery. I reccomend this book!!!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what it is like to live with MPD. It's believeable and very well written. Many books on MPD are sensational, and extremely graffic. The emphasis is on the abuse events and patterns. This book is about the real life struggle of living with and recieving therapy for MPD. It is written in first person by a Multiple and her therapist. Both parties describe the difficulty in living with and treating MPD very accurately.

It's a book you can reccomend to your friends that won't give them nightmares, but will certainly cause them to think and to learn.

Thankyou Joan Casey and Lynn Wilson

This one's a little different. First, it is written not by the core personality, but by one of her alters. Secondly, the therapist's own notes are interjected through out in an attempt to show you both sides of the story. The main difference, however, comes from the style of therapy Casey and Wilson engage in: serious re-parenting. Personally, it went to such an extreme that I thought it was unhealthy. Yes, I want to trust my own therapist, but I fail to see how becoming a frequent visitor in his house and treating him like a pseudo-father figure would benefit either of us. Boundaries are very, very flimsy here, nearly to the point of co-dependence.

That said, The Flock is a decent read. The story is involving, even if completely impossible for any multiple I know to identify with. No one I know will ever receive such therapy. In fact, I'm not sure that they should.

Joan Frances Casey managed to account for and explain all twenty-four entities. She provided a clear and coherent picture for those who do not understand or wish to learn about MPD. She also provided a companion to those struggling with their own entities. Many books have tried to document real and fictional MPD cases but failed to really be coherent in accounting for the personalities. This is an excellent book, and one worth reading several times over.

This book has been criticized (in the MPD community) as being unrealistic in the context of The Flock's treatment (essentially she was reparented). Nonetheless I think it's valuable to read for many reasons. Besides, who wouldn't want to be reparented? (sure seems to work quicker!) The author's choice of de-emphasizing the abuse descriptions (there are no graphic descriptions of abuse in this book) provides us with the rare opportunity to focus on the treatment and the growth of the Flock over time. I also very much appreciated the less than optimal description of the integrated person - Joan Casey needed post-integration therapy to deal with some of your run of the mill issues of self-worth and destructive relationship patterns. (This is very real life! Integration is usually not the END and you live happily ever after. I was very happy to see this discussed and resolved so favorably in the end.)

This book was the second one I have read about MPD; the first being "Sybil", which I read several years ago. My understanding of this condition was greatly increased by "The Flock". I was also deeply moved by Joan Frances Casey's ability to share her experience. She gave us everything from emotion to action and all within context. I was especially fascinated by her description of her integration: how incredible these bodies are, but how much more incredible the souls that propel them. Reading her story has led me to think along the paths of our purpose in living these lives and in these bodies. She has urged me to continue reading on this subject. I feel I'm on the edge of learning so much more about our psyche and even my own. Thank you, Joan Frances, and of course, Lynn and Gordon. What a wonderful contribution their lives left behind.

Beautifully told, this well-written and fascinating book is a must for anyone interested in DID or really any of the illnesses that have been confused with that disorder for years. The writing is eloquent, yet the images of this book are striking (something like McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood," or those in "Sybil.) If you have to choose one book on this illness, choose this one.

This is, by far, the most amazing tale of a multiple I have read. I find it more thorough than many of the more famous books, including Sybil. The reader is given an incredible insight into the mind of Casey and her many personalities, and upon finishing the book, you are left with an amazing understanding that I feel is rare. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interest in this subject - I can't promote it enough!

This book was given to me by a friend and in all honesty I expected little from it. I had read Sybil and wasn't all that impressed and expected this to be very similar. I was pleasantly surprised; this book is far more convincing then Sybil. It lets you actually get into the mind of a multiple to see what they're thinking and not only what the main identity is thinking but also the lesser personalities. It also goes over the origins of most of the personalities which provides an absolutely fascinating aspect to learning about MPD.

There are points in this book I sat back astonished at just what this woman could accomplish. At one point she was letting two different personalities write notes with two different hands at one time. How this is even possible is mind boggling to me and that isn't where it ended. There was just so many layers of completely fascinating details going on at all times.

The only complaint I have about it is the way in which it was written. It's somewhat choppy going between the therapists notes and the author's own writing. This would have been OK if it was set up formally (i.e. one therapist note chapter then one author chapter and repeat) but at times it wavered and this made it sometimes a bit confusing. All and all though it's definitely worth looking into especially if you're interested in learning about MPD from the perspective of someone who's been there.

I really enjoyed this book. I myself a multiple now have words to what we have been feeling and this book really explained and put into words things that we couldn't. I recomend this book for any multiple just be careful because some things are triggering, but it doesn't go into gory details of the abuse. Thank you for this book. I was really saddened at the end though at the loss. (Not any fault of the book)