Working with the Shattered Self: Treating the Spectrum of Dissociative Disorders and Dissociative Symptomology

Learning Objectives:

Through lecture, discussion, Q+A, exercises, handouts, clinical observation (via video), and case consultation, students will be able to:

1. list the five dissociative disorders and describe their major symptoms and common phenomenology.
2. summarize at least two theoretical frameworks for the etiology of dissociative disorders.
3. conduct an assessment and perform a differential diagnosis for the dissociative disorders.
4. distinguish between assessment, stabilization, and working through stages of treatment and be able to describe the clinical tasks for each stage.
5. create treatment plans specific to individual cases taking into account client resources and limitations, symptomology, as well as other idiosyncratic features.
6. describe a phased approach to the treatment of dissociative disorders.
7. describe common clinical errors in the treatment of dissociative disorders including errors of avoidance/fascination, containment, pacing, sequencing, over-involvement, and others, as well as strategies for preventing them.
8. identify and discuss common transference and countertransference dynamics as well as other issues of the self of the therapist in the treatment of dissociative disorders.
9. list and describe a variety of clinical techniques for managing suicidality and parasuicidality (self-injury), metabolizing traumatic rage and grief, gaining rapport with hostile ego-states, and deactivating self-destructive conditioning in dissociatively disordered patients.
 

Revised 11/17/07