Series Overview: This four-part webinar series provides an introduction to the treatment of dissociation and complex post-traumatic disorders. It is designed as an overview for persons who have not completed more extensive training such as the ISSTD training series. The goals are to provide tools for the early provider of services to conceptualize treatment, and to begin to acquire tools to manage the three typical stages of this challenging and rewarding type of treatment. The authors wish to acknowledge that any stage-oriented model is more of a general schematic than a precise road map. Therapies often must oscillate among the stages—but in a well-managed therapy, this is a general overview.

Session I will feature Catherine G. Fine, PhD, Past-President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Dr. Fine will provide a brief overview of the typical three-stage model—stabilization, working through of traumatic memories, and eventual termination. Her talk will then focus on the typical first challenge in these therapies—taking a client who is in crisis, and teaching them ways to achieve a measure of emotional stability. Her presentation will include memory containment mechanisms, methods of aiding clients in protecting themselves from unrestrained flashbacks, methods for clients to tolerate and begin to manage their feelings. Emphasis shall be placed on attaining appropriate stability for the client, before attempting ‘memory work.’ Dr. Fine teaches from a cognitive-behavioral informed perspective, and wrote a seminal paper on crisis prevention and stabilization.

Session II will feature Kari A. Gleiser, PhD. Dr. Gleiser is on the adjunct faculty at Dartmouth Medical School, and maintains a practice focusing on survivors of severe trauma. She will particularly focus on ways of managing the traumatic memories of clients in a way that does not re-traumatize them or overwhelm them with unrestrained affect. Dr. Gleiser maintains an active practice in training other practitioners in AEDP - Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy which focuses therapeutic practice towards appropriate dyadic regulation and attachment.

Session III will feature Christine A. Courtois, PhD, incoming President of the Trauma Division of the American Psychological Association, and Dr. Philip Kinsler. The focus will be on moving towards and accomplishing healthy terminations with dissociative and complex chronic PTSD clients. Pitfalls in managing termination will be discussed including issues such as “will you be my friend,” “You said you’d stay with me,” “I’m not all better yet” and the ever popular “I don’t need you any more.” Different styles of termination will be presented including a planned termination date, spaced out contacts over time, or the sometimes unavoidable “leave angry but function better” termination.

Session IV will feature Philip J. Kinsler, PhD on Boundaries and Ethics in trauma-focused treatment. Dr. Kinsler is former Chair of the NH Board of Mental Health practice and on the faculty at Dartmouth Medical School. Therapy of dissociative patients provokes myriad ethical issues—transference and countertransference, dependency and distance, handling emergencies, managing the financial transaction, dealing with insurance companies, client dependency, client distancing, clients with multiple somatic complaints, etc. Dr. Kinsler will discuss both a general ethical approach to these dilemmas, as pioneered by Dr. Courtois—“first, do no more harm,” as well as specific information about managing identified ethical concerns.

Go to Registration Page

Back to top

Session I COURSE OBJECTIVES:
As a result of attending this webinar, participants will be better able to:
-- Describe a therapy model effective in stabilizing an affectively disregulated dissociative disorder patient.
-- List the components of the "third reality" as the concept is used in the treatment of dissociative disorders
-- Discuss the importance of promoting using fractionated rather than complete abreactions as you enter stage two of the triphasic trauma model.

Webinar Series I

Part 1. The Use of Tompkins’ Innate Affect Theory and Nathanson’s Compass of Shame in Facilitating the Understanding and Treatment of DID and DDNOS

This 90-minute presentation, orignially broadcast live on the internet, June 25, 2008 at 5:30 PM EDT, reviews Innate Affect Theory, explains the relationships among various affects and dissociation, and suggests therapeutic strategies to overcome their deleterious impact upon the dissociative patient ’s state of mind and interpersonal behavior.

Part 2. The Music Behind the Lyrics: Mastering the Dissociative Surface to Facilitate the Understanding and Treatment of DID and DDNOS

This 90-minute webinar, first broadcast live on the Internet, July 30, 2008 at 1:30 pm EDT will explains how to recognize and decode the dissociative surface, and how to make interventions based on a process that may never be conveyed in a completely verbal form. Several other approaches to understanding the process of the dissociative patient are also explored.

Part 3. Try to See It My Way Squared: Identifying and Resolving Stalemates and Impasses in the Treatment of DID and DDNOS

This 90-minute webinar, first broadcast live on the Internet, August 27, 2008 at 5:30 pm EDT discusses impediments to therapeutic progress in work with these patients, and offers a check sheet for identifying areas that require exploration in order to get therapy back on track.

Part 4. Respice Finem: Beginning Treatment in a Way that Facilitates a Constructive Integration or Resolution as Therapy Proceeds

This 90-minute webinar, first broadcast live on the Internet, October 15, 2008, at 1:30 pm EDT, suggests that certain prognostic variables are associated with good, bad, and intermediate outcomes, and indicates how to improve at least some of the problematic variables in the early stages of treatment.

To Register for live and on demand ISSTD Webinars, click here.

Webinar Series II