Treating dissociation (DID and OSDD) - comments for therapists on polyvagal trauma work
Channel: Re-embodying emotional experience
Date: 2022-12-23

This is directed to professional therapists. Therapists who do not actively attend to their own internal responses while listening to their severely dissociative clients repeatedly fail them and fail to adequately reach deeper attachment material during processing for a renegotiation of attachment templates. Beyond that, such therapistsoften don't realize how they're resisting their clients - they exhaust themselves and are more non prone to suffering secondary trauma. Getting acquainted with polyvagal and third-wave somatic approaches for trauma and attachment work may be needed for this to make sense to those who are solely trained in cognitive, psychodynamic or existential methods. I can recommend recent books from Peter Levine ("Trauma and Memory: Brain and body in a search for the living past" is my top recommendation), Janina Fisher ("Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors" is my top recommendation for her work) and Patricia Ogden (her books on sensorimotor psychotherapy).