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A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities
Crown
October 2007
On Sale: October 2, 2007
368 pages
ISBN: 0307382664
EAN: 9780307382665
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
One afternoon in 1989, Karen Overhill walks into
psychiatrist Richard Baer’s office complaining of vague
physical pains and depression. Odder still, she reveals that
she’s suffering from a persistent memory problem. Routinely,
she “loses” parts of her day, finding herself in places she
doesn’t remember going to or being told about conversations
she doesn’t remember having. Her problems are so pervasive
that she often feels like an impersonator in her own life;
she doesn’t recognize the people who call themselves her
friends, and she can’t even remember being intimate with her
own husband.
Baer recognizes that Karen is on the
verge of suicide and, while trying various medications to
keep her alive, attempts to discover the root cause of her
strange complaints. It’s the work of months, and then years,
to gain Karen’s trust and learn the true extent of the
trauma buried in her past. What she eventually reveals is
nearly beyond belief, a narrative of a childhood spent
grappling with unimaginable horror. How has Karen survived
with even a tenuous grasp on sanity?
Then Baer
receives an envelope in the mail. It’s marked with Karen’s
return address but contains a letter from a little girl who
writes that she’s seven years old and lives inside of Karen.
Soon Baer receives letters from others claiming to be parts
of Karen. Under hypnosis, these alternate Karen
personalities reveal themselves in shocking variety and with
undeniable traits—both physical and psychological. One
“alter” is a young boy filled with frightening aggression;
another an adult male who considers himself Karen’s
protector; and a third a sassy flirt who seeks dominance
over the others. It’s only by compartmentalizing her pain,
guilt, and fear in this fashion—by “switching time” with
alternate selves as the situation warrants—that Karen has
been able to function since childhood.
Realizing that
his patient represents an extreme case of multiple
personality disorder, Baer faces the daunting task of
creating a therapy that will make Karen whole again.
Somehow, in fact, he must gain the trust of each of Karen’s
seventeen “alters” and convince them of the necessity of
their own annihilation.
As powerful as Sybil
or The Three Faces of Eve, Switching Time
is the first complete account of such therapy to be told
from the perspective of the treating physician, a stunningly
devoted healer who worked selflessly for decades so that
Karen could one day live as a single human being.
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