Working with dissociation and self-states across conditions using theory and practice from CBT, DBT, ACT and CFT

In this workshop you will learn to identify, formulate and work with dissociation across disorders as well as with different symptoms of dissociation in a given case.

The Cognitive Theory of Dissociation was developed by Dr Kennedy and colleagues and first published in 2004. Since then, it has been developed and applied further and provided the theoretical basis for more published research. It is based on Aaron T Beck’s cognitive model of personality and other thinkers’ work on the self (for example Pleydell-Pearce, Stopa, Brewin). It is very clinically relevant as little training is provided to clinicians on the topic, despite dissociation underlying many clinical presentations such as severe anxiety, depression, cPTSD, BPD, depersonalisation disorder, DID, somatoform/conversion disorders and more.

Fiona has a well-known interest in integrating CBT, ACT, DBT and CFT in theory and practice and applies this in her training, showing how insights from different approaches can complement each other in addressing the clinical issues stemming from dissociation. Dissociation is an evolved set of responses elicited when a person is traumatised and helpless, and especially when the trauma is perpetrated by a carer. Learned in childhood, it continues into adulthood where instead of being adaptive it becomes problematic for the person.

The CBT model of self-states, Aaron T Beck’s model of the self, created back in 1996, shows how ‘orienting schemas’ or our brains’ pattern-recognition systems, allow us to identify the current context and the demands of the situation we find ourselves in. Other sets of schemas, organised together into modes, (or CBT ‘hot cross buns’) determine how we respond in terms of thinking, feeling, body sensations and physiological responses. For example, if I have a lift phobia and my friend invites me to meet at the top of the Eiffel Tower, my orienting schemas will recognise this as a threatening situation. I will transition into a self-state called “lift phobia mode” and may not be able to control or choose my responses from then on.

This workshop is suitable for Psychologists, CBT therapists, Counsellors and EMDR therapists. The training will mostly benefit those with an interest in learning about or in further integrating CBT, ACT, DBT, and/or CFT, in theory and practice, with a view to understand how different approaches can complement each other in addressing the clinical issues stemming from dissociation.

You will receive takeaways from the workshop, which will include The WDS and D-ISS assessment scales, as well as a free article written by Dr Fiona Kennedy and Dr Helen Kennerley.

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the importance of dissociation and how to identify it

• Understand the cognitive model of dissociation

• Assess dissociation across different conditions

• Formulate dissociation as part of a client’s presentation

• Have some basic techniques for working with dissociation at each level