Founders of clinical psychology, including Freud, Janet, and Morton Prince, observed that those who manifested psychological (e.g., psychogenic amnesias, alternate identities) and somatoform (e.g., medically unexplained paralyses) dissociation often have a lifetime history of chronic and/or severe trauma. They also noted that these patients were often very responsive to hypnotic techniques. Contemporary clinical, neurophysiological, developmental, and cognitive research has supported those early observations and added others, such as the link between disorganized early attachment and dissociation.
This course will first introduce the concept of anomalous experiences to differentiate experiences that are just unusual (for a particular cultural at a particular time), from those who actually bring about distress and maladjustment. It will then discuss the complex concept of dissociation including the various forms through which it can manifest, and what research tells us about its relation to different types of trauma and unresolved forms of attachment. The second half of the course will delve specifically with manifestations of dissociative psychopathology, their evaluation, and the use of adjunctive hypnotic techniques within a stage-treatment of trauma.
Part 7 of 8
SEMINAR CONTENT
TARGET GROUP Relevant to clinicians including psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychologists, counsellors, psychotherapists, social workers and other health professionals working with traumatised clients.
