Working With The Highly Dissociative Client : Assessment, Staging Treatment and Fostering Integration

For our clinical population presenting with higher levels of dissociation and complex trauma, parts stuck in the traumatic past often have difficulties making reflective rather than reflexive decisions as they battle both internal and external pressures from different self states. In this workshop, clinicians will learn about the DES and MID assessment tools to use in conjunction with the SDI and PTSI to better guide case conceptualization and treatment. Integration of the personality is not simply the unification of parts but is the bedrock of functioning which organizes both our body and mind as well as our patterns of social engagement to each other. Using the theory of structural dissociation of the personality and various techniques from EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™, Ego State Therapy and guided imagery, clinicians will be able to better assist their clients towards a higher level of personality integration thereby reducing defensive patterns and action tendencies (fight, flight, freeze) which often lead to rapid switching, poor decision making and habitual self-harming relapse patterns.

Objectives:

At the conclusion of this workshop participants will be able to:

• organize and stage treatment so that clients work within their “window of tolerance” for managing unpleasant affect and dissociative tendencies.
• utilize the DES and MID as diagnostic tools to screen and assess for levels of dissociation.
• Be able to disrupt maladaptive action tendencies in their clients through use of mapping techniques and anchoring of resource parts.