Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities

One afternoon in 1989, Karen Overhill walks into psychiatrist Richard Baers office complaining of vague physical pains and depression. Odder still, she reveals that shes suffering from a persistent memory problem. Routinely, she “loses” parts of her day, finding herself in places she doesnt remember going to or being told about conversations she doesnt remember having. Her problems are so pervasive that she often feels like an impersonator in her own life; she doesnt recognize the people who call themselves her friends, and she cant 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. Its the work of months, and then years, to gain Karens 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. Its marked with Karens return address but contains a letter from a little girl who writes that shes 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 traitsboth physical and psychological. One “alter” is a young boy filled with frightening aggression; another an adult male who considers himself Karens protector; and a third a sassy flirt who seeks dominance over the others. Its only by compartmentalizing her pain, guilt, and fear in this fashionby “switching time” with alternate selves as the situation warrantsthat 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 Karens 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.

Baer, now medical director for the nation's largest Medicare contractor, had a psychiatry practice for 14 years. He offers a complete account of his 18 year odyssey with Karen Overhill, a seemingly normal wife and mother who came to him for depression and eventually revealed 17 separate personalities. A classic case of multiple personality disorder (MPD), Karen survived a childhood of unimaginable horror and was only able to maintain even a tenuous grasp on sanity with the help of 16 alters who lived inside her--men, women, and children, each frozen at a certain age and stage in Karen's development. Baer draws on 622 pages of progress notes, videos and audiotapes of sessions, and Karen's journal entries and letters to describe their journey into the human psyche. B&w letters and drawings are included, along with an epilogue by Karen herself. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The first story centering on multiple personality disorder to be told by the treating physician, this is the incredible saga of a young woman pitched into an unimaginable darkness who, to survive, created 17 different versions of herself. 20 b&w photos.

RICHARD BAER is Medical Director for Medicare in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. He had a private psychiatry practice for fourteen years and served as President of the Illinois Psychiatric Society.