Kathy Steele – An Integrative Approach to Stabilization with Dissociative Clients

This presentation will offer an integrative approach to stabilization in clients with dissociation, ranging from Complex PTSD, DDNOS, and DID. Since childhood abuse and neglect interfere with normal development across wide areas of functioning, clients are generally not yet able to integrate traumatic memories. Instead they suffer from flashbacks, intrusions from, or switching to, child parts that are overwhelmed and not oriented to the present, have serious unresolved inner conflicts, and struggle with daily life. Thus, early treatment is most effective when it focuses on supporting the client to overcome developmental deficits, using a phase-oriented, relational model. There are many helpful models for treating trauma, but many of them do not include ways to address the underlying dissociative organization of the client’s inner experience. We will focus on an eclectic, integrative approach to stabilize dissociative clients, which incorporates many therapeutic approaches I have found helpful over 30 years of experience. I use a wide variety of relational, cognitive, mindfulness, affective, somatic, ego state, psychodynamic, EMDR, and hypnotic techniques. A demonstration of some of these techniques and their positive effects will be shown in a video of a session with a client who had DDNOS.