Talk by Kathy Steele entitled 'Dissociation' - notes taken on 10th March 2023.

[Hope67]

I listened to this talk on 10th March 2023, it was by Kathy Steele and was entitled 'Dissociation'. 

She mentioned the book 'The Haunted Self' - I think Kathy Steele wrote this, but I've not checked that.  The book is dated 2006.

Dissociation: 4 categories.
1) Spacing; checking/zoning out.  In trauma - prolonged checking out.  Can interfere with lives.
2) De-personalisation: Somatic.  Disconnect.  Body larger or smaller.  Perceptual.
3) Nervous system: Dorsal-vagal shut-down.  Physiological state.
4) Pierre Janet's 3-phase model historically (of personality).  Structural dissociation - sense of self.  Every aspect of experience.  Dissociative identity disorder.  More than one sense of self.

Dissociation - not necessarily related to trauma.  Can be many reasons.

Treatments DO work.
Develop more realisation about what happened and capabilities in the present.
Difficulty regulating emotions keeps it going.

So:
Stabilising and regulating emotions
Resolving traumatic memory
Resolving traumatic attachments
EMDR
Exposure based
Mindfulness
Somatic

Should be organised to enable adaptation.

1)Stabilisation: Safely.  Reducing symptoms.
2) Traumatic memory: Development pieces.  Relationships.
3) Personality integration: Grieving.  Cohesive sense of self.  More joy. Less interference from the past.
Holding the trauma.
Avoiding the trauma.
Build cooperation between parts.
Addressing trauma too soon can be destabilisting.

Inner experience - can be phobic and dysregulating.  Therefore mindfulness - external first to test tolerance.

Skills: Mindfulness, Grounding.
Identify, regulate and tolerate emotions.
Tolerate an impulse and develop ability to wait.  Postpone the urge.
Ability to reflect and think about experience.

Dialectical and behavioural therapy.
Commitment and acceptance therapy.

Mentalise.
Another perspective.

* Schwartz - ego states.
Parts in DID (dissociative identity disorder) - continuum with ego states, but more divided, don't necessarily share same information and often don't.
Non-confrontive compassionate approach.

Knowing and not knowing.
Something happened that frightened/upset you.

Spring board for resilience

Past in the past = important idea.

Self - integration based on development.
Self = developmental.

Catch up on pieces of self we left behind.

Time losses.
Somatic symptoms - pain intrusions.  Vaginal pain in present or absence of feeling.  Numb.
Symptom clusters of dissociation.
Across time and situations.

Less intense and fade to different degrees.

******
This was a really good talk, I don't feel my notes did it justice, but hopefully it makes sense at some level.  :-)

Hope