Loving a System: A Practical Workbook for Couples Living with DID and OSDD
Loving a System: A Practical Workbook for Couples Living with DID and OSDD is a comprehensive, trauma-informed relational workbook designed to support couples in which one or both partners live with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD). Written by licensed professional counselor Sara Rice, M.A., LPC-S, this workbook integrates contemporary trauma theory, attachment research, and clinical best practices into an accessible, step-by-step guide for building safety, communication, and intimacy across dissociative systems.
Rather than framing dissociation as pathology, the workbook conceptualizes systems as adaptive communities of parts shaped by developmental trauma. Couples are guided to develop a shared language for dissociation, understand the origins and functions of different self-states, and distinguish trauma-time reactions from present-day relational dynamics. Central concepts such as the Window of Tolerance, switching, protector logic, attachment wounds, and internal cooperation are explored with clarity and compassion, allowing partners to respond with attunement rather than misinterpretation.
Each chapter combines psychoeducation with structured worksheets, guided journaling, couples reflection prompts, and practical communication scripts. Topics include system-aware communication, navigating switching in relationships, working collaboratively with protector parts, supporting child and vulnerable parts ethically, managing conflict and repair across parts, trauma-informed intimacy and consent, daily functioning and shared responsibilities, and creating predictable routines without rigidity. Special attention is given to consent, pacing, and safety, emphasizing that healing occurs through choice, trust, and regulation rather than pressure or forced disclosure.
The workbook is designed for flexible use: couples may move sequentially or selectively, revisit chapters as needed, and adapt exercises to their system’s capacity and therapeutic context. Therapist-facing notes provide guidance for clinicians who wish to incorporate the workbook into individual or couples therapy, while remaining clear that the partner’s role is not to replace professional treatment.
Loving a System offers a rare, system-affirming relational resource that validates both the lived experience of dissociation and the partner’s emotional reality. Its ultimate aim is not integration or symptom elimination, but cultivating secure attachment, mutual understanding, and sustainable connection—supporting couples as they learn to love not just an individual, but an entire internal system with dignity, respect, and care.
Please note: On September 1st, 2026, this book will be available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. Furthermore, I will soon list the companion book for therapists, as well as a system-to-system companion quick workbook.
Rather than framing dissociation as pathology, the workbook conceptualizes systems as adaptive communities of parts shaped by developmental trauma. Couples are guided to develop a shared language for dissociation, understand the origins and functions of different self-states, and distinguish trauma-time reactions from present-day relational dynamics. Central concepts such as the Window of Tolerance, switching, protector logic, attachment wounds, and internal cooperation are explored with clarity and compassion, allowing partners to respond with attunement rather than misinterpretation.
Each chapter combines psychoeducation with structured worksheets, guided journaling, couples reflection prompts, and practical communication scripts. Topics include system-aware communication, navigating switching in relationships, working collaboratively with protector parts, supporting child and vulnerable parts ethically, managing conflict and repair across parts, trauma-informed intimacy and consent, daily functioning and shared responsibilities, and creating predictable routines without rigidity. Special attention is given to consent, pacing, and safety, emphasizing that healing occurs through choice, trust, and regulation rather than pressure or forced disclosure.
The workbook is designed for flexible use: couples may move sequentially or selectively, revisit chapters as needed, and adapt exercises to their system’s capacity and therapeutic context. Therapist-facing notes provide guidance for clinicians who wish to incorporate the workbook into individual or couples therapy, while remaining clear that the partner’s role is not to replace professional treatment.
Loving a System offers a rare, system-affirming relational resource that validates both the lived experience of dissociation and the partner’s emotional reality. Its ultimate aim is not integration or symptom elimination, but cultivating secure attachment, mutual understanding, and sustainable connection—supporting couples as they learn to love not just an individual, but an entire internal system with dignity, respect, and care.
Please note: On September 1st, 2026, this book will be available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. Furthermore, I will soon list the companion book for therapists, as well as a system-to-system companion quick workbook.
The Ears Were Sold Separately: And Other Oddities I Learned About Marriage
In Progress
The Ears Were Sold Separately: And Other Oddities I Learned About Marriage explores the often-misunderstood dynamics of long-term relationships through a psychologically grounded yet accessible lens. Drawing from clinical insight and real-world patterns, Sara Rice, M.A., LPC-S examines why couples struggle not from lack of care, but from misaligned expectations, cognitive overload, and the complex workings of the human nervous system. With a balance of clarity, wit, and depth, this book reframes common marital frustrations—like “you didn’t hear me”—into opportunities for more accurate understanding and meaningful connection.
At its core, this book isn't about fixing your partner. It is about seeing them—and your relationship—more clearly.
The Ears Were Sold Separately: And Other Oddities I Learned About Marriage explores the often-misunderstood dynamics of long-term relationships through a psychologically grounded yet accessible lens. Drawing from clinical insight and real-world patterns, Sara Rice, M.A., LPC-S examines why couples struggle not from lack of care, but from misaligned expectations, cognitive overload, and the complex workings of the human nervous system. With a balance of clarity, wit, and depth, this book reframes common marital frustrations—like “you didn’t hear me”—into opportunities for more accurate understanding and meaningful connection.
At its core, this book isn't about fixing your partner. It is about seeing them—and your relationship—more clearly.
The Universe is Trying to Kill Heather
In progress (VERY MUCH SO)
Heather learned early that the world was arranged against her. It was not a distortion. It was an accurate reading of the room she was raised in, and it kept her alive. The problem with an accurate belief is what happens when it outlives the conditions that made it true.
This book is a collaboration between a therapist and a survivor, written together, in real time, about what it takes to separate the danger that was real from the danger that was installed and the danger that is simply a nervous system doing its job too well. It moves through the work in the order the work actually happens: safety before memory, orientation before meaning, and a life before any tidy resolution. Along the way it takes seriously the things the literature tends to skip, including forced complicity, shame that arrived as identity rather than emotion, spiritual injury, and the particular loneliness of being disbelieved by the people trained to help.
It is not a recovery arc. It is a record of two people working, and of what got built anyway.
Heather learned early that the world was arranged against her. It was not a distortion. It was an accurate reading of the room she was raised in, and it kept her alive. The problem with an accurate belief is what happens when it outlives the conditions that made it true.
This book is a collaboration between a therapist and a survivor, written together, in real time, about what it takes to separate the danger that was real from the danger that was installed and the danger that is simply a nervous system doing its job too well. It moves through the work in the order the work actually happens: safety before memory, orientation before meaning, and a life before any tidy resolution. Along the way it takes seriously the things the literature tends to skip, including forced complicity, shame that arrived as identity rather than emotion, spiritual injury, and the particular loneliness of being disbelieved by the people trained to help.
It is not a recovery arc. It is a record of two people working, and of what got built anyway.