Library
Recommended Books
Books about Dissociative Identity Disorder, trauma, and healing — memoirs, educational texts, clinical resources, and workbooks recommended by our community.
Content notice
Nonfiction literature covering complex trauma, DID, and organized abuse can contain detailed descriptions of lived experiences. Please review content notices before reading, and take care of yourself as you go.
Memoirs: DID, SRA/MC & RAMCOA
First-person survivor accounts, lived experiences, and personal autobiographies.
Written by an Ivory Garden member
I Thrive: A Complex Trauma Healing Memoir
Part memoir, part creative manifesto, and part spiritual testimony, I Thrive follows the author through decades of living with, understanding, and integrating a complex dissociative identity. Shaped “the way a choreographer would shape a dance,” it centers not on the abuse but on what healed: art, dance, writing, and spirit.
In the author’s words: “Memoir has been an ongoing part of my healing and recovery journey… My life centers around well-being, and writing is one of my harmonizing practices.”
Available on Kindle (with a free excerpt) and in paperback from Lulu.
Find it on Amazon (Kindle) → · Find it on Lulu (paperback) →
Written by an Ivory Garden member
The Ombuds Circle, Volume II: Website Publications & Theoretical Works — Memoir, Institutional Memory & Un-Erasure
A genre-defying “archive memoir” that weaves together personal memoir, original papers on ombuds work and dispute resolution, and the author’s own records. It explores long-term coercive control, recovery, and giftedness, and draws parallels between ombuds work, mediation, and traditional Hawaiian hoʻoponopono.
In the author’s words: “It reflects the way this mind works, and is a part of this current layer of healing, and it also works to un-erase what has been erased and say, I matter, we all matter.”
Available as a Kindle edition.
First Person Plural: My Life As a Multiple
A detailed autobiographical account of a man discovering his DID diagnosis in adulthood, documenting his internal communication process, system negotiation, and personal recovery journey.
The Sum of My Parts
A survivor and attorney details her journey navigating severe childhood abuse, how her mind created protective alters to survive, and her path toward internal unity and advocacy.
A Fractured Mind
A prominent scholar shares his personal experience managing alcoholism and executive stress before discovering his DID diagnosis, focusing on long-term therapy and internal cooperation.
Suffer the Child
Documents a survivor’s experience coming to terms with severe ritualistic abuse, systemic programming, and extreme dissociation with the help of therapy.
Becoming One
A personal account of the recovery process of a survivor living with DID, emphasizing internal communication and system healing.
DID Education & Information
Written by an Ivory Garden member
Dissociative Identity Disorder in a Nutshell: A First-Hand Account
Written by our own longtime member Morgan, this honest book looks at the realities of living with DID without sensationalism, including recovery, integration, and finally leaving therapy, topics rarely covered at length elsewhere.
Ivory Garden is listed in its Resources section
Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Guidebook for Survivors and Practitioners
A guidebook written for both survivors and the professionals who support them, endorsed by experts and survivors worldwide. It is a companion to the picture book Our House, and the two are also available as a set.
Our House: Making Sense of Dissociative Identity Disorder
A picture book that helps make sense of DID in a gentle, approachable way. A companion to the guidebook above.
Multiple Personality Disorder from the Inside Out
Over a hundred people living with dissociative disorders, and the people who love them, share their experiences of diagnosis, therapy, and relationships. Many readers find it deeply validating.
The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
A comprehensive, accessible guide to DID for survivors and loved ones, covering diagnosis, treatment, and everyday life.
Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
A practical self-help guide with strategies and exercises for living day to day with DID.
Got Parts? An Insider’s Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder
Written by someone living with DID, this down-to-earth guide shares practical tips for managing daily life as a system.
Dissociation Made Simple
An accessible guide combining clinical research and lived-experience perspectives to demystify dissociation, reduce stigma, and offer practical grounding ideas.
The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness
Through real stories, a psychologist explores forgotten trauma and dissociation in everyday life, showing that dissociation is a natural response to pain and more common than many realize.
The Stranger in the Mirror: The Hidden Epidemic
Explains the common signs of dissociation in clear language, helping readers recognize dissociative experiences in themselves or others.
Switching Time
A psychiatrist’s account of his years treating a patient with many alters, and of their shared journey through therapy.
Trauma & PTSD
The Body Keeps the Score
How trauma affects the brain and body, and the many paths people take toward healing.
Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
Explains the link between adverse childhood experiences and adult health, and offers hopeful, practical ways to heal.
The Complex PTSD Workbook
A self-guided workbook drawing on CBT, DBT, and body-based approaches to help survivors work through complex trauma and build resilience.
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
Introduces a body-based approach to healing trauma, exploring how the nervous system holds and releases traumatic stress.
It Didn’t Start With You
Explores how trauma can be passed down through families, and ways to break the cycle.
Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors
A compassionate, parts-based approach to understanding and healing trauma-related fragmentation.
Therapy & Healing Approaches
Community favorite: imperative to our healing
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Discovering Your True Self Through Internal Family Systems Therapy
An introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) from its creator. IFS is a client-led approach, where you lead the healing rather than the therapist directing it, building a caring relationship with each of your parts.
Community favorite: imperative to our healing
Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual
A practical, hands-on workbook of IFS exercises and worksheets for working with your parts, with the person in therapy leading the process.
Internal Family Systems Therapy
The foundational book on the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, which works with the mind’s different “parts” and a core Self.
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
A practical, hopeful guide to recovering from childhood trauma, including managing emotional flashbacks.
The Haunted Self
The classic clinical text on structural dissociation and the treatment of chronic traumatization.
Rebuilding Shattered Lives
A thoughtful guide to the treatment of complex PTSD and dissociative disorders.
RAMCOA Education & Recovery
Educational and recovery resources focused on ritual abuse, mind control, and organized abuse.
Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs
A collection of clinical papers examining organized abuse, psychological manipulation, and approaches to therapy.
Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
A guide for therapists and survivors on understanding and safely working through the effects of ritual abuse and mind control.
Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
A survivor workbook with structured exercises, safety planning, and tools for internal communication and recovery.
Self-Care, Recovery & Mindfulness
Radical Acceptance
Gentle teachings on self-compassion and meeting our lives, and ourselves, with acceptance.
The Mindful Way Through Depression
Mindfulness practices to help break the cycle of low mood and rumination.
The Gifts of Imperfection
On letting go of shame and perfectionism, and embracing a sense of worthiness.
The Artist’s Way
A creative recovery program. Wonderful for expressive and creative healing.
For Loved Ones & Professionals
Our coping group’s current book
Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation
A skills-training guide for survivors and their therapists, with practical exercises for daily life, emotions, and inner communication.
Someone I Know Has Multiple Personalities: A Book for Significant Others
Practical suggestions for understanding and relating to loved ones who live with dissociative conditions.
The Dissociative Mind
An in-depth exploration of dissociation for clinicians and readers who want to understand it more deeply.
I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help!
Helpful for navigating resistance in loved ones who have trouble recognizing that they need support.
