The recent New York Times feature on dissociative identity disorder (DID) did something rare. It approached a complex and often misunderstood diagnosis with care, nuance, and humanity. Rather than relying on caricature or sensationalism, it centered the lived experiences of people navigating DID and the clinicians who have devoted their careers to understanding and treating it.
At the heart of the piece is McLean’s own Dr. Milissa Kaufman.
Milissa is a psychiatrist, researcher, and long-time leader in trauma and dissociation care at McLean. She is also someone who made the deeply personal decision to share publicly, for the first time, that she once lived with DID and recovered after years of treatment.
She did so fully aware of the professional risks, speaking openly about the shame that kept her silent and the fear that disclosure could affect how her work and credibility might be perceived.
That decision deserves recognition.
When a respected clinician and scientist shares lived experience thoughtfully and responsibly, it carries uncommon weight. It challenges the assumption that mental health conditions and professional excellence are incompatible.
It pushes back on the idea that vulnerability undermines competence. And it offers reassurance to patients, families, trainees, and colleagues who may be struggling in silence: Needing help does not diminish who you are or what you contribute.
This matters not just on a human level, but on a practical one.
Stigma remains one of the most significant barriers to mental health care. Fear of judgment or professional consequences keeps people from seeking help, delays treatment, and deepens suffering.
Research consistently shows that hearing directly from people with lived experience is one of the most effective ways to reduce stigma. Personal stories build understanding in ways facts alone cannot.
The New York Times article does exactly that. By grounding DID in real lives rather than myths, it helps dismantle long-standing misconceptions and opens the door to more informed, compassionate conversations.
This is especially important within health care.
We ask extraordinary things of the people who work in medicine. We expect steadiness under pressure, emotional availability, and endurance.
Yet too often, we operate within a culture that treats vulnerability as something to manage privately and distress as something to push through. The unspoken message is that strength means silence.
The consequences are well known. Burnout, moral injury, and compassion fatigue affect clinicians across roles and settings.
Stigma plays a quiet but powerful role in this cycle. When health care professionals believe that acknowledging mental health struggles could jeopardize their standing, they wait too long to seek support.
Delayed care worsens distress. Distress fuels burnout. And burnout reinforces silence.
Stories help interrupt that cycle.
Through Deconstructing Stigma and related efforts, we see how sharing lived experience can shift culture from the inside out. Stories from health care professionals are especially powerful because they challenge the belief that mental health struggles happen only to “other people.” They remind us that clinicians are human first.
Lena’s story is one example. As a health care professional who struggled during training, she speaks honestly about pressure, isolation, and the fear of being perceived as weak in environments that prize endurance. Her story resonates not because it is unusual, but because it is familiar.
Stories like Milissa’s and Lena’s do not solve systemic problems on their own. But they matter. They make it safer to speak. They invite compassion where judgment once lived. And they help create workplaces where people seek support earlier, rather than waiting until they are in crisis.
At McLean, our mission is to improve the lives of people and families affected by mental health disorders through care, research, education, and advocacy. Living that mission means treating illness with clinical excellence and confronting the forces that keep people from seeking care in the first place. Stigma, including within our own profession, is one of those forces.
The courage to share one’s story is never owed. But when it is offered, as it was here, it demands a response. Our responsibility as a field is to listen, to learn, and to build systems and cultures where seeking mental health care is met with the same respect, urgency, and compassion as any other form of medical care.
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Susan M. Szulewski, MD, MBA, is the president, chief operating officer, and Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Chair of Psychiatry for McLean Hospital and vice president of Clinical Operations for Mass General Brigham Behavioral and Mental Health.
A board-certified psychiatrist and physician executive, Dr. Szulewski brings more than two decades of clinical, operational, and quality leadership to her role. She previously served as chief medical officer for both McLean Hospital and Mass General Brigham Behavioral and Mental Health, where she led system-wide initiatives to improve psychiatric access, enhance quality, and strengthen engagement across multiple hospitals and care settings.
