IEDTA Conference 2024

I will be presenting on two topics at the IEDTA conference 2024:

1. ‘The Multiple Mind’: Self States, Structural Dissociation, and Dissociative Identity Disorder
   AdvancedIntegration with EDTs
   8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
   Fairbanks C
   PANEL

   Description

   Please note this presentation spans two sessions (8:30-10am & 10:30am – 12pm), with a mid-morning break in between.

   Though the mind’s ‘multiplicity’ has long been acknowledged, the nature, extent, and forms of this multiplicity vary across therapeutic models. ISTDP follows in the Freudian tradition, considering the mind divided into ego, id, and superego, conscious and unconscious, based in the dynamics of repression. Other models of mind, such as the ‘parts’ model of Internal Family Systems, view the mind as separated into compartments or ‘self-states’ that interact in dynamically relevant self-to-self and selves-to-other relationships. Trauma models have also long recognized the multiplicity of the mind, as seen in the relationship between traumatic stress and structurally dissociated self-states which well describe the phenomenology of PTSD and DID. In this panel we will present theory and cases related to the dynamics of ego-states or ‘parts’, structural dissociation of self states in PTSD and DID, and the relationship between overwhelming experience and peritraumatic dissociation. Recognizing and engaging with endopsychic multiplicity and related frameworks of trauma stress, persistent dissociative processes, and deficit-based adaptation has enormous bearing on the therapeutic alliance. We will present a therapist stance that encourages empathic attunement to the multiple mind as an unconscious adaptation. We will prioritize the discovery and knowing of dissociatively held “ways of being” as fundamental to activating and following the UTA. Each presentation will build upon the former, leading to a period of discussion and consolidation that emphasizes the overlapping phenomenology of multiplicity and dissociation, and styles of intervention that support integration across different clinical presentations.

   2. ‘Awakening the Heart’

   Advanced

   1:30 PM – 3:00 PM

   Fairbanks B

   Description

   When there is a conflict between the heart and the brain, let the heart be followed, because the intellect has only one state, reason and only within reason does the intellect work; it cannot get beyond it. It is the heart that takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach, it goes beyond intellect and reaches to what is called inspiration. Intellect can never become inspired; only the heart, when it is enlightened, becomes inspired’, Vivekananda (1893). In this session, I will speak about my subjective experiences with psychedelics, which over the last 4 years have dramatically changed my relationship with myself and my therapeutic practice. One way I have been impacted is via deeper access to my somatic countertransference when I sit with clients and adopt a therapeutic stance that is a deeply embodied, heart-centered, present-moment experience. This information, when used with discernment, can enable the Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance (UTA) to operate with more fluidity between both therapist and client. As the UTA becomes the dominant force in therapy, the more conscious we can become of our unconscious which frees up more of the energy we call love.