Challenging Moments in Trauma Treatment: Working with Complex Dissociation

This workshop will describe the effects of complex dissociation arising from developmental trauma on mind, brain, and body and the devastating effects it can have on interpersonal relationships, leaving the traumatized individual feeling disembodied, isolated and estranged. The workshop will outline challenging moments in therapy related to dissociation, including working with dissociative flashbacks, voice hearing, chronic out of body states, self-mutilation, severe emotional numbing, as well as compartmentalization of emotion and related self-states. The neurobiology underlying chronic traumatization will be described and related to the phenomenology of traumatized individuals who experience dissociative symptomatology. Clinical case examples will be utilized to illustrate relevant concepts throughout the lecture; experiential exercises and role play will be used to illustrate key clinical interventions.

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Educational Objectives

At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

• Recognize, assess, and treat the dissociative and non-dissociative aspects of each of the four dimensions of consciousness, including time, thought, body, and emotion.
• Apply neuroscientifically-informed treatment interventions for dissociative aspects of each of the four dimensions of consciousness, including time, thought, body, and emotion will be described using patient examples.
• Understand through experiential exercises and role plays how to make use of attachment resources, mind/body techniques, and internal voices

Ruth Lanius, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Psychiatry, is the director of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research unit at the University of Western Ontario. She established the Traumatic Stress Service and the Traumatic Stress Service Workplace Program, services that specialize in the treatment and research of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related comorbid disorders. She currently holds the Harris-Woodman Chair in Mind-Body Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. Her research interests focus on studying the neurobiology of PTSD and treatment outcome research examining various pharmacological and psychotherapeutic methods. She has authored more than 100 published papers and chapters in the field of traumatic stress and is currently funded by several federal funding agencies. She regularly lectures on the topic of PTSD nationally and internationally. She has recently published a book Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, & Treatment with Paul Frewen.