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February 25, 2010
So, what's new in ISSTD? A lot!
Welcome to 2010 in ISSTD! We hereby launch a new feature of ISSTD--Instant Update. We will use Instant Updates to send you interesting and important info in a more timely fashion than our Newsletter (published quarterly) allows. Instant Updates will show up in your mailbox intermittently (and will be posted cumulatively in the public area of the ISSTD website www.isst-d.org).
So, what’s new--other than instant updates? Actually, quite a bit. ISSTD is undergoing a period of energetic growth, enrichment, and professionalization. To those ends, ISSTD has updated its Mission Statement, Vision, logo/tag line, and strategic plan.
Mission Statement: ISSTD seeks to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation.
Vision: Social policy and health care will address the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation, making effective treatment available for all who suffer from the effects of chronic or complex trauma.
Tag line: Trauma and dissociation. It heals here.
I will provide a detailed account of our new 2010-2012 Strategic Plan in ISSTD’s March Newsletter. Here, I will highlight just two elements of our new strategic plan: (1) international expansion, and (2) increasing ISSTD’s focus on complex trauma and dissociation in children and adolescents.
In previous years, there have been many requests that ISSTD better address the needs of trauma/dissociation specialists who live outside English-speaking North America. We have now committed the Society to doing this. Thom Rudegeair, MD, ISSTD’s Board member from New Zealand, has been appointed as Chair of the new Internationalization Task Force. This task force is charged with recommending a set of actions to the Board so that ISSTD can better and more comprehensively serve our members from outside North America. Expect to hear more about this in the near future!
Similarly, the child and adolescent specialists in ISSTD have long asked that ISSTD devote more time and energy to child and adolescent matters. We have now committed the Society to doing exactly that. Expect to see a much more extensive program of child and adolescent workshops at the Atlanta conference in October. In addition, child and adolescent specialists have been appointed to the Core Areas of Competence Task Force.
The Core Areas of Competence is another new initiative of ISSTD. The idea behind the Core Areas of Competence is for ISSTD to delineate what amounts to an educational mission statement. To this end, a large number of senior members of ISSTD (30+) have participated in four rounds of email discussion in order to secure a consensus about the essential areas of knowledge for clinicians and researchers who evaluate, treat, and research complex trauma and dissociation. The Core Areas of Competence will drive certain aspects of our annual conference, the teaching in the Dissociative Disorders Psychotherapy Training Program (DDPTP), and other educational endeavors of ISSTD. The condensed version of the Core Areas of Competence is:
I. Complex trauma: Effects and responses
II. Understanding the concept of dissociation
III. Assessment
IV. Treatment
V. Ethical-legal, risk management, and forensic issues
As expanded for workshops at the annual conference, the Core Areas of Competence will look something like this:
I. Complex trauma: Effects and responses:
Complex posttraumatic effects and responses
Foundational areas of knowledge
II. Understanding the concept of dissociation
Tutorial on the concept of dissociation
Tutorial on dissociation research
III. Assessment
Assessment of trauma and dissociation
IV. Treatment of complex trauma
Introduction to the Treatment of Complex Trauma
Intro to Complex Trauma and Dissociation in Children and Adolescents
Advanced Issues in the Treatment of Children and Adolescents
Establishing and conducting effective trauma therapy vs. How trauma therapy goes awry
Memory, trauma, and suggestibility
Stage 1 Trauma Therapy
Special treatment issues in complex trauma and dissociation
Stage 2 Trauma Therapy
Stage 3 Trauma Therapy
IV. Treatment of DID (and DDNOS-1)
Introduction to Dissociation and Treating Dissociative Patients
Treatment of Dissociative Children and Adolescents
Treatment of DID
IV. Relational challenges in trauma/dissociation therapy
Transference/countertransference
IV. Treatment approaches
Models of treatment of posttraumatic disorders
V. Ethical-legal, risk management, and forensic issues
Ethical-legal issues and risk management
Legal and forensic issues with complex trauma/DID patients
The Board of ISSTD formally adopted the Core Areas of Competence 10 days ago. They have now been referred to the Core Areas of Competence Task Force, chaired by myself. The task force will refine and make recommendations for implementation of the Core Areas of Competence in three areas: (1) work with children and adolescents, (2) workshops for the annual conference, and (3) the DDPTP.
Bottom line: There’s a lot going on in ISSTD this year!
Sincerely,
Paul F. Dell, PhD
2010 President
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