What Is Dissociation? with Gordon Barclay

In this introduction to dissociation, Gordon talks us through:

• What is dissociation
• How do we know if we’re dissociating
• Starting to relate to what we have pushed away
• ‘Separating to connect’ & finding ways to respond to the patterns of reaction, rather than just reacting
• Low arousal dissociation and high arousal dissociation
• Why dissociation is there for a reason
• Creating a sense of safety before connecting to what was previously too much to feel (creating a mis-match)
• When and how dissociation dismantles
• A scale of dissociation and how it can manifest in daily life
• The difference between re-membering whilst present and becoming lost in the experience
• Normalising dissociation and how we can start thinking about it in our mental health systems.

ABOUT GORDON BARCLAY

Gordon Barclay was an NHS consultant psychiatrist in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland until 2019, now works privately in Glasgow and is an active CRM® Trainer and Supervisor, and has a special interest in the treatment of psychological trauma and dissociation.

Contact Gordon on dr@gordonbconsulting.com

Transcript

Welcome to the Sacred Womb Podcast with me, Melanie Swan. A space for women who want to heal at the root, reclaim the wisdom of the womb, and live as cyclical, sovereign women sourced from within, rooted in love. Hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast. This is series three. And wow, wow, wow, wow, I've got some amazing guests on who give just some exquisitely fantastic information from years of experience on trauma healing, on genuine trauma resolution. So to start off today, we've got an introduction to dissociation with Gordon Barclay. So Gordon's got years of experience working with dissociation, and he was an NHS consultant psychiatrist in Argyle on the west coast of Scotland until 2019. He now works privately in Glasgow and is an active CRM trainer and supervisor, and he has a special interest in the treatment of psychological trauma and dissociation. So Gordon gave us just a very rich podcast. There's loads of information, and I've listened to this twice already, and I'm still getting stuff from it, but I've tried to summarize it in bullet points in the show notes. So do check those out. But other than that, without further ado, here is Gordon Barclay with an introduction to dissociation. A very warm welcome to the podcast, Gordon.

Great. Thank you for asking me. Great to be here.

So what is this dissociation thing? We're starting to hear more about in real simple terms, just what is it

I think the word is used in many different ways, and one can be very technical about it. But I I tend to talk about things in a very lace be way. And I think it's becoming disconnected from aspects

of our experience. I think that would be the place for start. You know, so the opposite of association, which is about connection, dissociation is about disconnection, where we become disconnected from aspects of our experience, often to the extent that we may not be aware of them at all, often to the extent that we may have some awareness of what's going on, but we push it away, and that can happen consciously or unconsciously.

Yeah, that's really clear. So do you mean we become disconnected from painful experiences, or does that count for kind of joyful, loving experiences as wellOften painful experiences, but from any experiences which are difficult, which we find difficult. And again, when I say we find difficult, that might be very conscious, or it may be more unconscious. So we may be ashamed of those experiences. They may be too painful to feel. It may be associated with anger that we're really feel threatened by, and so on and so on. And so we often experience what we've pushed away, and I use that term. We often experience what we've pushed away indirectly as background anxiety, body tension, or we project it onto other people and so on and so on. So we experience it in some way, what we try to push away, but often indirectly.

Okay. So is that one of the ways we might be able to identify that we're dissociating, or are there other ways we might know?

Yeah, so uh I think that's a that's a real challenge, isn't it, for us to try to look at what we push away. And of course, therapy is very much about doing that. Um and with the support of the therapist, hopefully trying to be aware of sometimes with the therapist's help in terms of what happens in the therapy, which is often in a sort of triangular fashion, a reflection of what's happened in the past, what happens in the present in our life. It's often very helpful in therapy to try to create a triangle and be aware of what's happening between you and the therapist. And that can be a very helpful aspect of therapy. And I think trying to create an attitude where we're willing to look at what can be very difficult to look at. And that's talking quite cognitively in a way. Um, and there be can there can be different reasons why we're unwilling to look at things. We may be very ashamed, as I said before. It may be too painful to look at. We may feel that we shouldn't be feeling those particular feelings. In traditional therapy, what we might call top-down

therapy, we're trying to become aware of patterns that characterize our thinking, our feeling, and behaving. And many therapists would try to be understanding that in relational terms, in what's happening in terms of early relationships, how that relates to what happens in our day-to-day life in terms of relational experience, and how that triangulates with what might be happening with the therapist in the room. So, but I I think in uh in in trauma therapy terms, certainly, we're trying to understand the deep roots of those patterns and recognizing that a lot of symptoms, in a way, are responses and reactions to what has been too difficult to feel, what we've pushed away, what we've dissociated. So I think that distinction is enormously helpful to recognize that patterns of symptoms are often responses and reactions to feelings which often unconsciously we've pushed away, sometimes to the extent of not being aware of those feelings. And so I think the word, using the word in a very general sense, using the word dissociation, is helpful to distinguish that phenomenon of pushing away what has been, what feels as if it would be, and can be too much to feel.

Could you give an example of you know how an adult in the present day might experience a symptom that does have a root in an experience that's been too difficult, so it's been sort of unassociated with, it's been disconnected with, but it's still somehow whooshing up or getting triggered or activated in our present day life.

Yeah. So for example, um, and and just thinking of a patient actually, because that's maybe a a clear example. Um, someone was talking with his partner and they were just talking about buying something for the kid, and suddenly he became enraged and he destroyed her phone. And I said to him later, what happened at that moment? And he was aware for a split second, he said, I felt shamed

by her. And so the shame, he'd actually been aware of it, and sometimes we might not be aware of those deeply pushed away, deeply buried feelings. He'd been away for a spin aware for a split second of the shame, but the anger then took over because those feelings of deep shame can be too much to feel. And so he was aware of that for split second, but it became an angry reaction, which was a response and a reaction to a feeling which was too much to feel. Sometimes those feelings are too much to even be aware of, and they often relate to what the neurophysiologist Jack Panksett called basic affects, intolerable basic affects generated deep in the midbrain. Shame, terror, rage, aloneness, anxiety, and pain and disgust. Those feelings that are just too much to even feel, sometimes for a split second, so they give rise to responses and reactions, which we become aware of as patterns of symptoms.

So basically, it's an example of something happened, a relational experience in childhood. It's just unbearable to feel at the time, so it's kind of gets stored up and unassociated with and pushed away. And then in adulthood, it just kind of gets activated by different things relationally, and it's just whoosh.

Yeah, and it's so so I suppose the original implicit, the body-based memory is activated, and the associated patterns of emotional learning are also activated. And one could think of those patterns of emotional learning as ways of trying to deal with what was too much to feel at the time. And those patterns of emotional learning, in a way, they constitute our personality, and they're the water we swim in and the air we breathe. So they're very, very difficult to become aware of, and that's where therapy can be helpful. Because sometimes it's very, it's it's too shameful to look at those feelings. And so we we we push them away. And so I suppose that comes on to um thinking about how we think about the challenge of relating to that experience that we pushed away. So if I have a part of me that feels a shame, that feels really inadequate or alone, how do I relate to that part of me? How do I relate to the emotional responses to that experience? For example, I might have an anger problem that relates to feeling shame. So, how do I relate to those aspects of my experience? Those aspects of me, because they are part of me, those parts that I pushed away that are holding deeply traumatic feelings, for example, of shame, of aloneness, those parts of me that are about those patterns of reflexive, automatic response to those too much-to-feel feelings, which we could call patterns of emotional learning. You know, where am I treat other people not well? How do I relate to that? And I think the I think it's helpful to think of that challenge relationally. In other words, to not just be identified with those patterns of reaction, but also not to disconnect from them. And I'm instinctively using my hands here because I use that in therapy, to not disconnect from them. So, and I and we could call that the reaction against the reaction, where I'm ashamed about my anger, and so I just deny it. I blame the other person. I don't want to look at that issue, which in a way is a reaction to the reaction. So then I'm disconnected from those patterns of anger, or I'm sometimes identified with them rather than relating to them. And so the challenge is to begin to relate to what we pushed away, relate to it, to disidentify,

so we're not just lost in those patterns of reaction, but to separate in order to connect. That's one of my sort of mantras. Separate to connect rather than separating to disconnect. Finding a way of responding to those patterns of reaction rather than just reacting.

Is what you're saying is like you're separating from the from the automatic response that comes, reaction.

Separate to look to be able to look at it and be aware of because when we're in it, we're just in it, yeah, on the one hand.

And then to connect with what's underneath it, what's driving it.

Also, yeah. So to be aware of where it's coming from at the same time. Um and initially that connecting, that relating can just be about being aware of and acknowledging. Because sometimes it's it's too much to connect in a in a closer way, to connect in a feeling way, certainly with the root of those patterns. That can be too much to do initially. But taking what what a patient recently called taking a we step, taking a small step from disconnecting, and the disconnecting might be through being just frustrated with that pattern, denying that pattern, pushing that away. Taking a small step to connecting might just be about being aware of what we've previously pushed away. And so I talk of there's a sort of continuum of connection, of being aware of and acknowledging, and then being understanding of and towards, I think is another really important step. And understanding of leads to understanding towards. And so if we're thinking about relating to those parts of ourselves, not shaming ourselves, not being angry with ourselves, trying to be understanding of where those patterns came from, uh, leads to help us be understanding towards ourselves rather than just being caught in those loops of reaction to reaction where we're angry about the fact that we get angry. We're angry about the fact that we feel ashamed and vulnerable. Rather than trying to relate to ourselves with the understanding that would often easily and spontaneously characterize the way we thought about someone else.

Are you saying that as we change those patterns of relationship with ourselves, then we can change our patterns of relationship with others?

Also with others, yeah. But just changing that pattern of relationship with ourselves can be enormously helpful in terms of how we feel. I mean, that's someone who I saw years ago told me many years later that just helping him understand that he had a little boy inside that deserved understanding in the way that very easily he would understand someone else had just a radical effect. Because he he was he was a big tough guy. He is still a big tough guy, but there was a part of him that was very vulnerable because of what had happened to him in in the past, and there was a real split, and that split was characterized by him being really angry and frustrated with the vulnerability of that little part of him, and just inviting him to step into what I call clear enough self, potentially clear self, clear enough self, so that he could begin to relate with understanding towards that part in a way that because he was a really supportive warm guy, in the way that if there was another little person who was vulnerable, he would very spontaneously reach towards that person with love and real protection. And the idea that actually that part of him deserved that and needed that from him was dramatic. He just kind of got that. And although I didn't see him for many years, he said that that insight, that insight that led to something happening inside. Of course, as an insight that means nothing at all. So that insight up here has to allow something to happen up here. And I think the word understanding is a really interesting word because it means understanding of is quite cognitive. I step back and I think about something. But if we're understanding towards someone, that's something happening in the heart. And so, in a way, there's a virtuous circle of relationship that we can talk about in terms of stepping back and reaching towards. Reaching towards not in a reactive way, but in a under in an understanding, responsive way. And so the way the word understanding away connects thinking and feeling. Because if someone's an understanding person, it doesn't mean they've got a clever brain, they can do crosswords. You know, it means that they have an understanding heart. Um in the same way as the word feel connects feeling and body, actually, because you know, we feel something, that's an emotional thing, but this feels colder, it feels hard, or I've got a painful feeling in my body, that's that's a sensation. So that they're interesting words in terms of linking those realms of head, heart, and body. In a way, what we're doing there is we're thinking relationally, and we're using the understanding of relational dynamics between people, where there can be no connection, we can push away, we can be angry, there can be an identification, control, uh, codependence, and so on, or we can relate, which is about separation and connection. We're trying to use that relational understanding to think about what can happen inside, where we can either be reactive or we can start to be responsive. If we're activating that clear part of us, what I call clear enough self, we're responsive, we're trying to be understanding, we're trying to relate rather than be reflexive, reactive, and push away.

And so I I know there's also sometimes a different aspect to dissociation. Maybe it's not maybe there's not a reaction, or as we might think of it as a reaction, maybe there's like an a numbness, like a a sort of tuning out, a zoning out, and and just an you know, numbness is really hard to identify because it's numbness. So how would you start to relate to maybe parts of the self, parts of the psyche that we don't even know are

there? Like we're we're kind of numb. Say we go to do something at work, or there's an aspect of our relationship that's just m, there's just a space. We just tune out. How do you start to relate to that?

I mean, that will often emerge in experiential therapy, and I think the first step of relating is to be understanding of that, because those experiences are often characterized by real frustration or a real disconnection. And so I think to be understanding of the phenomenology of that, of why that's happening, of how that's happening, of the reason for that is the first stage. And I think understanding a little bit of physiology is very helpful, and one can sometimes distinguish between higher rasal dissociation where someone feels a bit spaced out and is neurophysiologically, you know, cannabinoid related in terms of what's happening neurochemically in the body, and low arousal dissociation, which is more of a kind of sleepy, numbed-out feeling. And in some way, that that correlates with um what can under one can understand in terms of sympathetic hypo arousal and dorsal parasympathetic hypo arousal with that way of looking at things. And so I think the first thing is to understand uh why that's happening, that that's happening for a reason. And then to try to connect if one's working with parts or ego states, uh, and in the therapy that I use, we're generally working with parts or ego states, and to try to connect with that part and helping that part initially have an experience of being safe and not alone, as a relational experience. Now, sometimes, and this is now talking a little bit about therapy, when one's working with those parts that are in that place, one is trying to create a new, in the present, different experience of feeling safe and not alone. Whether with the adult self, and sometimes initially that's difficult, and so we're working with resource figures to help those younger parts of us, sometimes in a very dissociated place, have an experience of feeling safe and not alone, and and working on creating that new relational experience, something that's felt in the body, certainly before thinking of doing any work with the past, before doing any remembering work, before doing any processing work. Because I think it's very important to uh understand and remember that when there is very significant dissociation in the way you're describing, it's there for a reason. The feelings that are the root feelings, the root experiences which give rise to that dissociation have been pushed away because they've been too much to feel. And I think that's where one has to be very careful with trauma therapy. And in a sense, comprehensive resource model, which is the therapy which I often use, arose in response to that understanding. And that some other trauma-focused therapies, although they're evidence-based, that evidence-based refers to a patient group, which is a very different patient group from patients who are suffering from more severe trauma dissociation. And so, evidence-based though they are, one has to be very careful using those approaches to treat more severe trauma because that can be re-traumatizing. In other words, if one connects to feelings that have been pushed away for a very good reason and just connects to them without that being in the right context, that can be re-traumatizing. What does in the right context mean? It means that as we're feeling what was too much to feel, we're in a very different place. And we're feeling safety, we're feeling loving support. That's something we're feeling in our body, whether by we, I mean the patient or the ego state we're working with. And the remembering and the connecting to those too much to feel feelings happens

in the context of feeling safe and feeling not alone. And the technical term there would be mismatch. There's a mismatch of the experience of a state dependent memory, feeling what we felt at the time, but we're feeling that in the context of feeling safe and feeling not alone. And so the remembering remains an experience of remembering and doesn't become a re experience. Experience. We stay in the present as we feel the previously too much to feel feelings from the past. We're not pulled into a flashback experience. We're not having to disconnect from that. We can stay fully present as we feel feelings that were too much to feel. And indeed, if we felt them in the same way, in the same context as we did at the time, they may very well be overwhelming again, which in a way is a flashback situation.

So once we started to create this safety, this connection in the body, that experience, then these unbearable feelings or previously unbearable feelings. That's a great way of putting it. What happens to the dissociation?

So the dissociation, in a sense, is a response. And I think it's important to underline that it's an adaptive, it's a protective response. It actually prevents someone from being totally overwhelmed. When that's no longer needed, that dismantles, as as do other symptoms that can be understood as reactions and responses to what was too much to feel. If we've been able to

feel those feelings in the remembering in the safe present, in an experience of remembering when those feelings can be fully felt, stepped into and fully felt, the responses and reactions that have characterized symptoms hitherto, they dismantle because they're no longer needed. That seems like a very simple equation. I'm going to die. I'm alone. Those feelings are the too much-to-feel feelings. And all so many of our symptoms, our patterns of response, deal with those too much-to-feel feelings. And what's fascinating is, and you know, in in so many people I see, um, and you know, I can recognize this in myself as well, people are very high functioning. And they have layers and layers of very adequate functioning that in a way are led on top of what got left behind. So, you know, my little eight-year-old might have got left behind, and I've become a very competent person professionally, personally. I have good relationships and so on and so on. And then some, you know, and and the the way in which that left behind feeling manifests is Protea in its manifestations. Proteus was the Greek god who had many forms. And so it might be that I have an occasional depression. It might be that I have a rage problem that comes out in a totally bizarre way. It might be that in certain social situations I suddenly feel really empty. And it might come out of the blue, it might just appear to sweep me off my feet. Or it may uh manifest in different ways. It may manifest in the body as fibromyalgia, as a depression, as background anxiety. So, in a way, very similar experience phenomenologically, of too much to feel feelings that have got, so to speak, left behind, can manifest in many, many different ways and can align with very adequate functioning in many areas of life. And that's what's absolutely fascinating. And and the kind of wiz, if I could put it that way, the wisdom of dissociation is extraordinary sometimes. And I see some people at the severe end of the spectrum with dissociative identity disorder who've had a fantastic family life. They they brought up four kids and done a really good job doing that, and you know, maybe fallen apart in their 30s. But you think, how did they manage to do that? Because they dissociated and completely pushed away incredibly extreme feelings that had they felt them fully or all the time would have been totally overwhelming. So it's because of that compartmentalization, that extreme encapsulation in a pushed-away manner of feelings that would have been too much to feel. It's because they've done that. And again, when I say they've done that, I'm not suggesting conscious agency, the mind has done that in an extraordinary way. It's because they've done that that they've been able to often function very highly in certain areas of their life for a long time. And with those extreme presentations, one sees what's going on very, very clearly. But I think for all of us we do that to some extent. And actually, when we really get down to it, you know, most of us have some aspects of our experience that have been deeply buried, deeply pushed away, and in a way it's quite hard to get to, it's very hard to get to that cognitively. And even if one understands that, that understanding isn't mutative, to use a technical term. The understanding itself doesn't change that. So, in a way, that understanding has to correlate with experiential work, where we connect to that level of our experience that has been pushed away, that has been dissociated. And we connect to that in a way where we're not going to be overwhelmed, but where in a gentle, safe way, we can connect to those previously too much to feel feelings without that experience being overwhelming, and where those feelings can be felt fully digested, processed, metabolized, metabolized into a normal memory, where those experiences are in the past as well as from the past, and they're not rushing into the present as unmetabolized, undigested, too much to feel feelings.

Okay, so we'll still have whatever happened, it was unbearable, we'll still have the memory, but the the the intensity of that emotion, you know, the experience won't be there. We'll be able to remember it. Yeah.

So it's not it's a cool memory. It's a normal memory, uh rather than a tr rather than a traumatic memory in a way. So we can remember it as traumatic, but it's not traumatic to remember it.

Yeah. So just for those people listening who who are kind of might be wondering, what does that feel like and look like if, okay, you create some safety, you create, you know, this therapy, there's this resourcing. When you're talking about emotions or you know, experiences that were previously unbearable, yeah, and to really go towards those and feel those fully.

Yeah.

So someone that's not experienced

that, I'm thinking that might sound like, oh, what? I've got to go there. So can you just give us maybe an example of yes, when we feel safe and resourced, an idea of what that might look like when we do lean into and feel fully that root of something that was unbearable?

That that's a great question there. So let's go right to the heart of that in therapy. So we're working with an eight-year-old self, and they're in that feeling, they're feeling that feeling, and they're saying this is unbearable. As the therapist, we then have to decide: are they feeling a feeling that's unbearable and expressing that that feeling is unbearable while being present, while not being overwhelmed, or are they lost in that experience and being overwhelmed? And it can look very similar from outside. And sometimes we might just check explicitly and say, Are you okay? Are you still present? Are you managing? Are you still with this or are you lost in this? You know, just just nod and tell me if you're okay. And so someone can be, and it's interesting in trainings, but someone was just telling me the other day that in a training, a lot of people in the training watching a demonstration where someone was really connecting to overwhelming feelings in a demonstration, but they were okay. And the therapist had assured them, had uh assured everyone, assured themselves that they were okay. But people watching were still finding that very difficult to understand, that distinction. So it's one thing feeling a feeling that has been overwhelming when we're grounded, we're present, we feel lovingly supported. So it's a remembering of something. That's one thing, and it's another thing where we become lost in the experience, and that's like a flashback experience. And in therapy, when one's working with those feelings, that is primary, making sure that someone is present, they're present as they feel that feeling rather than being lost in the feeling. There's a kind of there's a kind of literary expression of that. Blake said, to be in a passion, you good may do, but no good if a passion is in you. So it's it can look very similar when someone is sitting in the chair and they're feeling those too much to feel feelings, they're wailing, they're really connecting to that. It can look very similar, but but but actually as a therapist, when you're working, you it it it it feels it feels different. And one's sometimes checking in, but generally you can feel as someone's being overwhelmed. And then you want to pull them out of of that experience and make sure they're right back in the room. But if but otherwise one wants to make sure that they can be with that and stay with that if they're not being overwhelmed, because going right down into the root of that is what's going to be deeply healing.

You know, you're talking about the the root and really getting there.

Yeah.

Are we talking about feeling this unbearable stuff? Is it like a few hours, a few minutes when you actually get to it? Yeah. Just so people at home have got an idea of like, you're right, we can ask to be feel this, okay. I'll get dissociation, again, I've got to reconnect, again I've got to feel safe while I do it, and you know, be really be present. How long am I in there for? How long is this, you know, gonna take? So can you give us an idea of that?

Yeah, I mean that's a that's a great question. It's a how long is a piece of string question, but it's a great question. Um, and distinguishing between the preparation for that and when one's actually in that place when one's feeling that feeling. The preparation is what's important, the preparation is what takes the time. And one may work sometimes, you

know, one can go in that, one meets someone and one can go into that very quickly. Sometimes that takes months to get to a place where someone is ready to do that. But when someone is really well resourced, using that technical term, of bringing them into a place of neurophysiological safety where they're feeling safe and not alone in the body when any younger parts or ego states are in that place when one's checked in and they feel ready to do that. And we're really devolving control to them. And I say that explicitly before the beginning of the session. I say, how do we know when those parts are ready to step into that root work? How do we know that? We ask them. The controls with them. We're really making sure that they understand what we're doing. They're, you know, especially if they're a little bit older, if they're two or three, it's a bit different. But if they're a little bit older, they're conscious of what we're doing. They're becoming aware of this requirement for a mismatch of a juxtaposition between being really safe and loved in the present and knowing they're safe and feeling that's safe. They understand all of that. And so they know when they're ready to do that. But coming back to your question, when that's ready to go, that can be a few minutes. And and and people will feel that as a physical shift. And often as the therapists, we feel that as well. It's we just feel what's happening. And people will describe, oh, I feel lighter. Something's shifted. There will be metaphors that relate to something happening physically in the body. So that can take a few minutes. The preparation for that is what's important. And I think also if one's talking about, for example, a younger part who's holding feelings of deeper loneless and terror, the relational experience of feeling safe and not alone itself, before even stepping into the lack of that, the past trauma of not having that, that initial experience of feeling safe and not alone is often more than half the battle of those younger parts being open to that, of negotiating the wariness and the vulnerability around connecting deeply. That's often more than half the work. Working through the blocks to feeling really safe and open and lovingly supported in the present. And so when one's got there, someone's in a completely different place where they can feel what previously would be too much to feel, has been too much to feel.

Gordon, this is this is all really, really clear. Thanks for explaining it so um clearly and also giving a pass through, because I think it possibly can feel maybe can feel quite daunting to think, well, we're all dissociated in some way.

Yeah.

And we don't seem to be, it doesn't seem to be a thing we learn in school. It doesn't seem to be a thing that's discussed in in normal conversation very much, or in therapy circles very much, really. So um thank you for giving a really clear definition of it and giving us like a path through. Okay, this is what's happening, but this is what we can do about it, and actually it works.

I mean, I think on the idea of dissociation, talking about it very broadly and generally, in a way is on a continuum. And then when we say when we invoke Socrates at the beginning of Western civilization, we say the unexamined life is not worth living. I mean, that's the beginning of connecting. If we start thinking about what we do, rather than just doing it and being in it, and rather than being disconnected from it, that's the beginning of overcoming dissociation in a way. So I think it's really interesting to try to normalize it, to think about it as something that does relate to what we can connect to culturally and and in terms of how we think about therapy.

Yeah, okay, great. Fantastic. So thank you so much, Gordon. Is there anything else you want to like add about dissociation? Anything from I mean, you've got years and years of experience around this. Anything you've observed culturally that you think would is important?

Yeah, I mean let me let me say a bit about that culturally and broadly, but from the perspective as a psychiatrist. And I'm interested in this because uh I'm involved in organizing uh a meeting that's happening at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in February, a colloquium, an introductory uh a colloquium, which will be a sort of inaugural colloquium of what we hope to create as a group interested in trauma dissociation, and we have five speakers for that. But it's fascinating in psychiatry that there's a real split between

people who are open to thinking about dissociation, to um working with dissociation, and some psychiatrists who believe that it doesn't exist. Um and and so and and so that the controversy around that is is very interesting. And it's almost as if socially in that that there's a dissociation from dissociation and the reasons for dissociation. I mean, who wants to know what happens in uh uh I mean Freud confronted that problem as well because the etiology of hysteria, which I think was in 1895, where he was basically saying that what was then called hysteria, you know, etiologically related to abuse. But he seemed to retract from that position because it was almost too much for bourgeois fienna to really confront the fact that you know these extreme presentations related to what was happening often at home, and that was too much to relate to. So I think there's been a history of disconnecting from, of dissociating from the phenomenology of dissociation and the reasons for that. Um, so I think that's that's one reason. And the other reason is it's it's complicated and messy, it's not a clear diagnostic box that one can put something into, because as I said before, it is protein and its manifestations. And even a discrete diagnostic entity like dissociative identity disorder manifests in so many different ways. Sometimes it might be very obvious, sometimes it may be very hidden, and someone may not, you know, not present obviously as DID at all. And so that can make it complicated, I think, for clinicians who often like to have discrete boxes that they put their patients in. And so I think that's a real issue. Um, and so I I think there's a challenge for psychiatry in terms of just listening to the patient and being aware of those prejudices and those preconceptions that can prevent us from listening to the patient. And so for me, trying to set up a group that's interested in trauma dissociation is not a particular way of looking at the world, but it's as much about becoming aware of preconceptions that get in the way of us just listening to the patient. Because if we listen to the patient, we will gradually begin to understand about dissociation. And I was an NHS consultant psychiatrist for seven years. And when I started, despite having done EMDR, trained in relational therapy, very interested in trauma, I had not a clue about dissociation. I didn't really see it. I also thought that DID was incredibly rare, and it was only gradually through doing on the side, doing 15 hours of therapy, we on the side after clinics and so on, with patients with very significant trauma, often, that I gradually began to understand the phenomenology of dissociation and see how common it was. So I think that's a that's certainly a challenge for psychiatry and in therapy as well. And I think without becoming too polemical, I'm being a little bit careful here. I think when we talk about evidence-based medicine, that's often talked about um in a in a very narrow way. And we talk about an evidence-based therapy as if that allows us to do that therapy with any patient, forgetting the patient group to which that evidence-base refers. So EMDR, for example, is a wonderful therapy, and that's that's where I started doing EMDR, and it's a fantastic therapy. It's fantastic that WHO gave its imprimature of approval in 2013. However, that research that relates to the evidence base relates to certain patient groups. And if one uses EMDR with very significant dissociation, that can be difficult. So I think these things also need to be talked about in a more nuanced way. And I think the same with CBT. You know, fantastic that CBT is out there, it's got a strong evidence base. But if one feels that one can use CBT because it's an evidence-based therapy and just use it willy-nilly with any patient without forgetting that that evidence-based refers to certain patient groups, that is a problem. And so I think the nuance of the way we discuss these questions has to be more refined than it is at the moment. If that doesn't sound too polemical.

No, sounds great. I think it, you know, basically what I'm hearing you say is that we're generally dissociated from dissociation.

Yeah.

And the more we can connect with that and look at it and be open to it, the better.

And dissociated from the causes of dissociation. We don't want to look at that. That's the the the underbelly of our society in a sense, of the way we behave with each other. The shadow, if you like.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, on that note, um, thank you so much. And I really wanted to let people know and give you space to talk about the fact that you're doing an intro to the dissociation, which is open to everybody. Yeah. It's a workshop, is it online?

Yeah, it's gonna be a day online workshop at the end of October, probably the last Saturday of October.

Okay, so the link to book that and get in touch with Gordon will be in the show notes. And you're a CRM trainer as well. So you're

doing an online UK time zone training first to fifth of September, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and of course, I would in in many ways I'd much rather be doing that face to face. And some people think, well, I'm gonna wait till I can do it face to face. I think surprisingly, one can create a real intimacy in terms of the group that's working doing a training on the one hand, and on the other hand, if you do do a training online, it's giving you experience of working online with that modality. So I think there are advantages to it doing a training online, and it means you don't have to travel, although coming to Glasgow is a wonderful thing to do. And you you know, you don't have to travel and pay for hotels as well, and you can just collapse at the end of the day. So it has some advantages as well. That five-day training is a very intense experience, I think, in terms of information, in terms of working with other people, but also in terms of personal process, and it's a very intense five days, but people often feel really energized by it. And the day after training, you are ready to use CRM. There are a couple of free supervisions, we're trying to create real support for people working in that way. So it's a it's an intense, but I think a great experience. So I'd encourage anyone to come and if anyone would like to you know know know more about the training please do be in touch and I will put those links in the show notes and I just want to kind of uh reiterate what you said really I did my CRM training online and yeah it was really it is intense there's lots of information and it's amazing like oh it's so juicy as well uh and so yeah I can I can highly recommend that and and you know it does give you the tools to go and then practice integrate it into your practice straight away so and in a way it's it's it's quite a big step maybe in a way to do a CRM training so so part of the reason for doing the introduction to dissociation day is to create a bridge um from therapy to doing a CRM training that's kind of part of the reason for that but it's it it's it's a very generic training very relationally based and trying to think a little bit about the history of dissociation but quite quite practical as well so that's what that day will be about fantastic all right thank you so much for your time Gordon thank you for your clarity great pleasure and uh yeah wishing you a great day up in Glasgow thank you very much see you soon