Talking about the self in third person won't bring on multiple personality, though if the therapist and client both falsely believe that it does, that could be a problem. That's the basis for iatrogenic DID.

Therapists should be clear that parts are normal. Amnesia isn't particularly.

Its interesting, that talking about self in the third person is of course odd, and it is true that people who do it are typically distancing themself from something. That is, "it didn't happen to me, it happened to her over there." So that distance appears to be pathological.

However, if the third person maneuver, which is called properly "object cathexis," enables the person to begin for the first time to talk about what it was that happened "that one over there" and begin to have compassion for that one, then that's actually LESS pathological than total amnesia for the whole thing. Eventually, once the memories have been detoxified, they can be owned, as in, "oh, that was ME it happened to." That's ego cathexis.

So working with parts in an inner space like a conference room (a hypnoprojective maneuver) is like a half-way house for self systems. Its a state of preparing for the real thing, namely, ownership of ones life and history and body and parts.

A careful assessment using a validated instrument to assess degree of dissociative would be a cautious thing to do, namely, the SCID-D or the MID or the DDIS maybe or at least the DES which is a screening instrument. Then one can have a better idea of whether the parts are parts or Parts.

Sometimes a client's prior therapy experience influences how they talk about themselves. Some therapy is lousy because its parts for parts sake, as if there is no total person. That's not reality, on the therapist's part or client's, but the therapist is responsible for the standard of care.

Parts work in service of integration (eventually, when the stuff has been detoxified) is like regression in the service of the ego. Never lose sight of the goal, the totality of person.