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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Welcome to the System Speak podcast, a podcast about dissociative identity disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Dee Michael Coy is a clinical social worker and maintains a private practice in Burlington, Washington, USA, where he serves emerging adults, adults, and older adults. Psychodynamically grounded, Michael integrates EMDR therapy with additional training in clinical hypnosis, ego state therapy, deep brain reorienting, and sensory motor psychotherapy. He offers clinical consultation on diagnostic evaluation and clinical practice with persons with complex trauma and dissociative symptoms disorders. Michael is an EMDR certified approved consultant and trainer through the EMDR International Association and served on IMDIA's standards and trainings committee from 02/2014 to 02/2017. From 02/2017 to 2020, Michael co chaired the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociations EMDR therapy training task group, which created ISSTD's EMDR therapy basic training.
Speaker 1:He now cochairs ISSTD's EMDR therapy training committee and co teaches the training. During 2020 and 2021, Michael was a member of the clinical practice working group of the EMDR Council of Scholars and currently serves a three year term on the IMGIA Training Council. Since 02/2016, Michael has collaborated with colleague Jennifer Madair and the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation or MID developer Paul F Dell to make the MID more accessible. He co authored the MID interpretive manual third edition and manages the MID analysis and MID website. Since 02/2017, Jennifer and Michael have taught and consulted for hundreds of clinicians on how to employ the MID for diagnosis, conceptualization, and treatment, both in The US and internationally.
Speaker 1:Michael has presented original material as well in the form of the EMDR IntroJect Decafix protocol, as well as a framework for recognizing, contextualizing, and resolving clients' dissociated memory material communicated nonverbally through mere neuronal communication, the integration of ego state therapy and EMDR, and the creative employment of trans in the treatment of complex trauma and dissociation. He has also coauthored both an article and a book chapter on screening and diagnostic assessment of dissociative disorders. Michael has served on the board of directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation since 02/2017 and became treasurer in 02/2018, a role in which he continues to serve. Welcome our friend and colleague, Michael Coy.
Speaker 2:Hello there. So I'm Michael Coy. I'm a clinical social worker in private practice in Bremerton, Washington, in The US. Bremerton is across Puget Sound from Seattle, so it's a ferry ride away. I work primarily with emerging adults, adults, and older adults in my practice.
Speaker 2:And probably seventy percent of the people that I serve on average have symptoms that would meet criteria for, a dissociative disorder.
Speaker 1:So let's start at the very beginning. How did you learn about trauma and dissociation?
Speaker 2:Innately at first, I think. I've I've been asked this question a couple of times in in other media, and I've either given a very serious answer or a very jokey answer. I was born a preemie and almost died. And so I wasn't touched when I was, born for a while until I was stable, which means I didn't have eye contact, etcetera. It was also a difficult pregnancy, and I have not met criteria for dissociative disorder, but I know that I experienced somatic dissociation.
Speaker 2:And that's on a personal level. On a sort of a more distant, level, I started reading about dissociation kind of by accident when I was in early college without having any idea that I was gonna become a therapist. I read When Rabbit Howls when I was 20, and it sounded interesting to me what was happening for Trudy Chase as is depicted in the book. But then I read that book and kind of left it behind, and it was only when I got trained in EMDR therapy in 2011 that I was, in a way, forced to pay attention to dissociation with clients and probably actually pay closer attention to my own dissociation, in different kinds of ways out of necessity.
Speaker 1:There are so many pieces of that I want to.
Speaker 2:It's a it's a it's a quite a winding road and maybe more twisty and turny than is makes for a clean way of pulling on any of those threads, but that's sort of what I've got for you.
Speaker 1:No. That's great. I would like, for just a moment, if you're comfortable, and even if we just talk clinically, if you don't wanna talk personally, for people listening, clinicians or survivors, tell us what or tell us more about somatic dissociation specifically. Because I feel like for me, it's a piece I really easily dissociate of just not in touch at all, new to feeling in my body. How would you even explain that to someone even if they were someone in your office?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna talk nondiagnostically, particularly talking about my own experience because how someone experiences somatic dissociation may be very unique to them. So for me, one thing I, and it was actually it was more than somatic dissociation. I really didn't have a lot of contact with, what I would consider protective emotions except in bursts, you know, like sadness, anger. Fear was probably and historically remains, most prominent for me. But it's not like I always have had easy access to those emotions.
Speaker 2:They show up maybe at times I don't really want them to. But the way that it had it manifest early on was I didn't really have a relationship with my own felt experience in certain respects. So everything felt muted, And I didn't really know this until I was treated with EMDR therapy, which is how I learned about it. I didn't train in it first. I actually was treated with it, and they would ask about how disturbing something felt on a zero to 10 scale.
Speaker 2:And it was actually really hard for me to muster
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:A a measurement. And then doing the the reprocessing, I found I didn't wanna do any more of it, and I couldn't explain why. And what it took me years to learn was that it hurt to reprocess, but not in a physical way. It was like there was a blockage. So information that was hanging around there in my brain wasn't making it into my body, but it's like my neither my brain nor my body knew that.
Speaker 2:So I was reprocessing on some level, but not on every level. That was a real education for me as I learned more about dissociation. Like, oh, that's what was going on for me. And it it has helped me work with my clients, in a more attuned way getting that now.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited that we're talking about this. Not excited that it's happened to anyone.
Speaker 2:You and me both. I'm not excited that it happens for anyone either. But on the other hand, I'm really glad that people have the capacity for it sometimes because it keeps them safe and sane in some way or another.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. And I I feel like this is one of those examples where we really have to sit and hold space with broadening our understanding of trauma because too often, even non clinically, too often we think trauma is the 05:00 news or trauma is what happens on Dateline or a bad Lifetime movie. And and one of the things that we've talked the last couple of years on the podcast about a lot is relational trauma and how that is a different aspect. What you're talking about with medical trauma, and I've seen this with my youngest daughter who was in the hospital the first five years of her life, is that there is both the harm that is caused, even though that's helping, and there is sort of what Steve Gold refers to as deprivation, the good that is missing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not because anybody tried to do wrong. It's like it was entirely circumstantial. I mean, there was more after that. It was familial, but, yeah, it started out as people doing the best they can, and this was the result, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Right. And I think I think another important layer of this is that when we talk about trauma, we and it's sometimes true. I don't and all mean to diminish that it's never true. But we too often only think in the binary of here is a perpetrator and I am the victim because of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which is problematic. Right. The scope has to be so much broader.
Speaker 1:Right. And and so so when it is these people are doing their best, either with what they know or trying to help or however you fill in that blank, the reality is that experiences can still be traumatic even when there's not a bad guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The the binary way of looking at things is problematic no matter what we're looking at, I think. I mean, it can be helpful sometimes assuming you know you're you're looking at things that way, but it's not very good for therapeutic neutrality to proceed from that point of view.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. And I think that as survivors or in communities, sometimes sometimes we feel like, oh, well, this part of my trauma or this trauma or my experience isn't as valid as and then you fill in the blank because there was not a bad guy or because this person was doing their best or because and sometimes there is a specific perpetrator for specific incident, and that's a real thing. I don't at all mean that. But holding space that is in a broader context of what is the impact on a child who does not have anyone no eye contact?
Speaker 1:What is the impact on a child when there is not touch?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just in I'm thinking in the example, our youngest daughter, we knew was coming because we already had her half sister. And so and I even saw her the day she was born, but she was so there were so many complications with her airway. She was immediately air flighted to another hospital. And it took thirty six days for DHS to get the paperwork done so that we had permission to visit. So she was in that box for thirty six days before anyone picked her up or looked at her or talked to her.
Speaker 1:Like, they changed her diaper. She was on a feeding tube, so they didn't even pick her up for feeding.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She wasn't nurtured.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You said something just a short time ago that it reminded me of a conversation I had with when I was a graduate student in social work with a fellow student. He was a a black man who was a chaplain, and he was studying to become a social worker. He wanted to be a therapist, specifically, and we were talking about sort of, like, the hierarchies of oppression. And this very idea of how, well, you've suffered more or less than I have, which can invalidate someone's experience.
Speaker 2:You know, you end up with these hierarchies of, well, yours counts as as trauma, but yours doesn't. And I asked him about that. Just we were talking in terms of race in this con you know, trauma and race, but he said, you know, and he said broadly, like, we have a saying, my ice is as cold as your ice. And that just that really struck me, and I have held on to that since then, like, fifteen, sixteen years, seventeen years hence because it's true I think it's true.
Speaker 1:I I see that. And and I don't want to get off track into this today, but I see this in the the recent politics with lived experience of, not just lived experienced clinicians, but but even in the community because of online access to each other in a way we've never had before of of comparing diagnoses of, like, DID or OSDD. Is that not DID enough? When all of it is valid, all of it is suffering, all of it is trauma. And, and then with lived experience, like, what gets to you can't measure someone else's lived experience.
Speaker 1:We don't know what the we as a dissociative person, I barely know the impact of my own stuff. There's no way I can judge what someone else's lived experience is.
Speaker 2:No. And it becomes problematic for me, and I'm speaking both personally and clinically, in that we don't entirely understand why someone develop certain clusters of symptoms, and other people in similar circumstances develop other clusters of symptoms.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We know that some of it is genetic and only insofar as, we know that hypnotizability has a genetic component. What role hypnotizability plays in how someone develops dissociative symptoms, for an example, is still being examined. But then you talk about there's nature, and then there's nurture. And I think it's it may be unhelpful to create a hierarchy of suffering even within amongst within and amongst people who experienced dissociation because I'm not so certain it's achieving the desired end. I'd like to think that, as humans, as pack animals, so to speak, that we thrive in community.
Speaker 2:But sometimes there's the flip side of that where it's not safe to be in community, and it gets into questions of what does health really mean. What does illness really mean? That's a big idea, and I'm probably not even qualified to talk about it, but those are the kinds of things that I find myself thinking about these days.
Speaker 1:I have experienced the same thing in conversations about coming out, whether that's coming out with lived experience as a clinician or as a person, whether that's coming out in the context of queerness, it's it's not always safe for everybody.
Speaker 2:No. And I'm I mean, I identify as queer, and, I mean, I remember what it was like because I'm almost 50. And I we all have our version of becoming authentic, whatever that means. And it's not always safe to be authentic. So I have a deep and abiding appreciation for other people's struggles to present authentically to themselves and to the world regardless of the reason or, you know, whatever it is that they're trying to emerge out from or into.
Speaker 1:Right. I love I love what you said about authenticity, that authentic life looking different for different people Because, even even in different contexts, like, some I have to be so just again to speak for myself, I have to be authentic, not just to who I am, but also, for example, the safety of my children. I still have young children. So by default, there are limitations to how out of anything I can be because I have to keep them safe more importantly than anything. And so I was talking to someone that we had oh, I was talking to the Chrises who's a coaching system separately in a different conversation that was simply about advocacy, and I was having a difference of opinion and struggling with and being vulnerable about feeling shame of, like, I really cannot do what you're saying.
Speaker 1:I cannot do it. And I talked about my children and the reasons why, and they agreed with that. They said, like, no. The the primary importance is keeping those children safe, and that makes sense. And I appreciated that they received that peace, but also just people's, even right now, at least in The United States, things have been so divisive.
Speaker 1:Even where you live, where I live in the world, the space around me determines so much of that sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, I'm consider myself a student of history. And some years ago, I did a lot of reading about the the development of what was originally gay liberation. It it wasn't an umbrella, and there was a lot of divisiveness. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there was a period in the '9 later nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies where, some, in particular, gay men or queer men that were cisgender males argued against what had previously been a, an approach of we're afflicted with this this disease called homosexuality. Please take pity on us, etcetera, etcetera, so begging for rights. And the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and it became, oh, no. No. We're not asking or begging.
Speaker 2:We're demanding, and we chose to be gay. And, eventually, that got used against the queer community because what started out as a as a clarion call for liberation became a tool of oppression, saying it's a choice. But there was a very specific point to that. It was to say, no. No.
Speaker 2:No. We're not victims. We own our our experience. And I see parallels with that in other movements, that are more recent. There's a move for ownership, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:And it'll be interesting to see how things continue to unfold over time.
Speaker 1:It's a it's a lot. I I I have experienced another another layer of this for me as far as intersectionality is as a deaf person. I have experienced this a decade ago. There was this movement of deaf therapists should only have deaf clients and I should only do sessions in sign language. And in the state that I lived in, I was the only at the time, I was the only signing therapist.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And that meant if I only worked with deaf people, I had like all the voc rehab people in the whole state. I had the only three other professionals in this state which meant I had no colleagues who were deaf because they were all my patients or my clients. And it caused all these complications. And so I've already lived through these politics in that context. And I really, for me, because of those experiences landed in this place where I don't necessarily want to be a queer therapist or a deaf therapist or a lived experience therapist.
Speaker 1:For me, because of my I'm only speaking for myself. Because of my experiences with this in the past, I just wanna be a really good therapist. And I happen to be queer or deaf or lived experience and in different settings that may be beneficial in other ways. It has challenges I have to take care of or or I need accessibility options or extra support or accommodations, whatever that looks like in different ways. But I just wanna be a good therapist.
Speaker 1:And then and not good, like, I even that word feels touchy because I'm working on all this religious trauma personally in my background, right? But I mean, I want to be skilled, I want to be attentive, and I want to help the people I am available to who are in front of me. And now the Deaf community have more options and there's all kinds of reasons for that and so it sort of let me out of that very, having my professional community also be my personal community. And for for me, as I work through religious trauma issues, for me, there's such a parallel to that experience. Even though I don't at all mean or resent or dislike people in my different communities, I just really need the freedom that comes with not cornering myself into that.
Speaker 1:So it's been a unique experience, and I know it's not everyone else's or that everyone agrees with me. But I'm really in the process of setting myself free and don't want to label it more.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's literally intersectional Right. Rather than sectional. Right. Exactly.
Speaker 2:We're complicated beings.
Speaker 1:Right. And and it's interesting because as I make progress in therapy and there's more blending or or I I I still am uncomfortable with integration just because I'm not that far. I don't know what that looks like, but I am because I have my own disabilities and because I have children with disabilities. I know all about IEPs. Right?
Speaker 1:And so Yeah. I can think inclusion. So I think how do I want to include all of me in whatever this experience is? And so I've been working on that kind of from that framework, but that means I can't leave parts of me out. And and so for me to see, like, what you were saying earlier, this binary thinking, I can't go out into the greater community and say, these people are good and these people are bad.
Speaker 1:I have to go out and say, what feels safe to my body? Where where can I offer some good? What feels like it is it is, helpful to me? What is useful? What do I want to offer?
Speaker 1:What can I receive and share? And have to really change those questions from that binary thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, something, that I'm I'm hearing you say, it's so complicated because I'm I'm loathe to co opt from, like, other movements or communities. But the reality so often, it seems, this is purely my perception, is there's really nothing new under the sun. So if you're talking about identity formation and assimilating different aspects of identity, broadly speaking, I'm not even talking about dissociation, although maybe I am. I think about even the stages of coming out for for queer people.
Speaker 2:Like, there are models of coming out that have been established and talking about, you know, discovering aspects of yourself and coming to terms with that and how they may those aspects of you may stand out as you are learning to be this other aspect of who you are, that eventually, it finds its place within the whole of who you are.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that is not specific. I mean, really, we are talking about dissociation no matter what we're talking about because we're talking about something that is not yet part of a whole. And I am not using that as any kind of political statement because I don't I don't have an agenda when it comes to my clients. I'm interested in what they're interested in. As far as, you know, goals, nevertheless, we do seem to move toward wanting internal harmony, however that may look for us, because it just doesn't feel very good being in conflict.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. I in in the I'm reading my first books about religious trauma, and, in my context, it has a lot to do with fundamentalism and, some unhealthy evangelical kind of things that I grew up in. And the language in those books is about deconstructing and reconstructing. And the first time I read recon like, I understood deconstructing, but the first time I read reconstructing, what I loved about it was that I do feel, even though I don't know everything and even though I've got so much more therapy to do, I do feel that I have done enough therapy that I can see all the pieces on the table, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not like Frasier's table where we're sitting around, but they're pieces. Yes. They're out there, and I know what they are. I still need to look at them. I still need to tackle them in therapy, but I see them.
Speaker 1:But for the first time, restructuring gave me an image of I get to be the one who puts this back together.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's really powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So speaking of putting things back together, I wanna come back to EMDR because that's your jam.
Speaker 2:It's one of my jams. Yes.
Speaker 1:One of your jams. What tell us your EMDR story.
Speaker 2:Which one?
Speaker 1:You told us how you experienced it the first time. How did you learn more about it or get into that world?
Speaker 2:So I did an introduction to EMDR therapy. It's like a brief introduction. I've done it a couple of times now, for different organizations, and it's like a two hour thing. A little bit of lecture and then q and a. And I have the slide that lists my journey in EMDR.
Speaker 2:And I discovered EMDR by maybe by accident. I'm not entirely certain. I was working in my first gig as a professional social worker in a residential treatment facility with, severely abused and neglected adolescent wards of the state in Chicago. And I learned very quickly what was unaddressed in my life, which was most of my teenage years. And I one day, while I was sitting alone in my office working on chart notes, I think, I had a panic attack.
Speaker 2:And I had seen a therapist before. I had I had seen I had a couple of stints with therapists in the prior to that, but I said I need to find a therapist. At the time, the only thing I was looking for was a therapist who attended the same school that I did because I figured, well, at least I know what I'm in for because I know what their approach is there. That was it. And I found somebody that was in walking distance with from my office, from from where I was working, because then I figured, well, I've got no excuse not to go then.
Speaker 2:And in the first couple of sessions, maybe it would might have been actually the first session, but the therapist said, you know, hearing what what you're dealing with, etcetera, etcetera, I'm trained in this therapy that I think might be of help to you. It's called EMDR. Have you ever heard of it? And I said, nope. So I went and did some research.
Speaker 2:This was around February pardon me. 02/2007, I think. Yeah. 02/2007. And that was and then I that kinda leads into what I mentioned earlier about not really liking it very much.
Speaker 2:But it worked well enough that I thought I need to save up to get trained in this. So I did. I saved up. And about four three or four years after that, I got trained myself. And talk about dissociation.
Speaker 2:I've actually I've never really shared this story, but I probably am still learning about my own experience. But my dad died the week before my first the first part of my basic training in EMDR. And I attended his funeral the week of. I I got back in town to go to the training. I think it was the day before my first training and my first my first weekend of practicum.
Speaker 2:Because you have to when you get trained in EMDR, you have to be in the role of therapist, the role of client, and potentially in the role of of observer in practice sessions. So you have to choose your stuff that you're gonna reprocess as the, quote, client, and I chose to reprocess something related to my dad from age eight.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. People.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It seems to have worked, but I was a very I was a very unaware, younger man. And, yeah. So, but it didn't go to the desktop at all. So, you know, I I probably there are very good reasons that I was attracted to working with people with dissociative disorders.
Speaker 2:And, I've I got when I got got fully trained in EMDR, I started attracting, people to my practice, for treatment who experienced more severe dissociation that was it had been very helpful for them, but then their life changed, but their inner experience of self protection didn't change. It didn't adapt accordingly when life got safer. So there was a mismatch, and that's why they were coming to therapy is because they were experiencing these things in the form of symptoms, these mismatches. And I didn't know what I was doing. I learned fairly quickly that, gosh, EMDR doesn't work the way that the label says it's supposed to with some of these people that I'm working with now.
Speaker 2:I was apparent I was strangely, I didn't have any difficulties doing working with clients during my EMDR training. I I didn't have a lot of clients that I knew of that had really complex histories at the time because I was fairly new even in private practice. So, I was forced by circumstance to learn about dissociation, And I have. So there's a lot more to it, but that those were sort of the building blocks of how my understanding developed and how my my skill set developed and is continuing to develop.
Speaker 1:How did you get from that to presenting this course for ISSTD?
Speaker 2:Well, I would consider myself I have always been precocious. My mother and my father are both passed now. My mother died many years ago rather young, but she essentially considered me her great experiment. She had me when she was 17, and, I actually come from a fundamentalist Christian background. My mother was a preacher's daughter.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So but her her great experiment was, she had all this enthusiasm for raising a child. She was very passionate about it. And when I would ask her questions, why is this the way that it is? How did this come to be? She would say, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Why don't you find out and come back and tell me?
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so I did a lot of that growing up. I spent a lot of time at the library because this was pre Internet. This is pre bulletin board systems, pre American online. So I just did a lot of learning, so that was kind of in my blood. I kind of became, over time, the person that other people would come to looking for answers because I I learned to be resourceful.
Speaker 2:And with my early trauma experiences and also having a really complicated history at home. Things were really complicated at home. I learned probably to be more self sufficient than would have been ideal, but it all came into the mix. So I'm an autodidact in many respects. So I get trained in EMDR, and I start doing advanced trainings because I wanna learn more.
Speaker 2:And I met someone in Minneapolis, Saint Paul area who kind of was a what was back then, they ran they had regions in the EMDR world. And, we're part of the EMDR International Association, and this particular person, was the regional coordinator for that region. And she would sponsor trainings. And we never had trainings in Chicago, so I would go to Michigan and, Minneapolis, Saint Paul to go to advanced workshops. And with this person, I started consulting with them, and there was a point at which they said, your questions are more complex than I think I have the answers for.
Speaker 2:And she referred me to speak to, Sandra Paulson, who has the distinction, among other things, of being the second person to have published in a peer reviewed journal on EMDR dissociation ever. And she kind of plucked me out of obscurity in a manner of speaking. I started consulting with her very regularly. Like, not just monthly, but I think it was actually every other week. And I did not have the money to do that.
Speaker 2:But I was like, this seems really important. And at some point along the way, with the specifically, the EMDR training that now exists, I I asked her, So, Sandra, what do you think an EMDR basic training would look like if the foundation was dissociation rather than dissociation kind of following. She used to call, dissociation's the engine, not the caboose. And so, well, what do you what do you think it would be like if if the EMDR therapy basic training were taught as if EMDR were the the engine, not the caboose. And she said something akin to, like, that's a really interesting question, but I wouldn't wanna teach it.
Speaker 2:And then so I don't know that I would want to either, but that kind of stuck in my head. And I I just left it. And, by that point, I had I had found other people who were also mentoring me, in the EMDR world, one of whom encouraged me to get involved in what then was considered one of the most important committees that the EMDR International Association had, which was the standards and training committee. So I was asking that question as a person, who had a volunteer gig reviewing other people's EMDR therapy basic trainings and advanced workshops to get accredited by the EMDR International Association, like the official stamp of approval. And, eventually, I ended up I had been at an ISSTD.
Speaker 2:This is the International Society for for the Study of Common Dissociation. I'd been an ISSTD member since 2012, specifically to get ahold of the multidimensional inventory of dissociation, which is one of the three well established diagnostic instruments to discern dissociation and dissociative disorders. But I've never been an active member until, actually, Sandra and Oregilanius, who is a, well respected, he's a neurobiologist and, psychologist who works with people with dissociation. They asked me if I would present with them, which I thought was insane. Like, really?
Speaker 2:You want me to present with you? And they gave me forty five minutes to present on, a screening instrument that I had developed that aligned with the the concepts that they were talking about that was not intentional. But, it's never been normed. I I share it with consultees. I use it, but maybe one of these days, I'll collect data on its use.
Speaker 2:But, I during the conference at which we we were presenting, which was the annual conference for ISSTD in 2016 in San Francisco, this is a very long story. This is totally one of my mother's stories. I love it. This is the story where I would I would finally say, mom, is there a point? She said, I am getting there.
Speaker 2:So please know I'm getting there.
Speaker 1:This is this is lines up exactly with deaf culture, and I love it. Keep going.
Speaker 2:So, we're almost there. So I at that annual conference, it opened doors for me that I would never have imagined even existed. It felt like coming home among other things, and it left quite a mark on me to be there amongst these people because I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm seeing history being made in these workshops and paper sessions because then you see people start writing about their concepts or evolving their ideas. I'm like, wow.
Speaker 2:This is just amazing. But at that conference, I attended the business meeting, which is only open to members. Anybody can attend the conference if they meet the criteria, but you have to be a member to attend the business meeting. And I stood up and asked, what are we doing about getting university students involved college and university students involved and educate them about dissociation? And the then president-elect Martin Daugherty from the the the stage says, may I have your business card?
Speaker 2:And I was eventually, recruited to serve on the a committee.
Speaker 1:That's how it happens.
Speaker 2:That's how it happens. That's how you get looped in. You open your big mouth. And I'm really good at opening my big mouth a lot all the time. I'm more judicious about it these days more often than not.
Speaker 2:But so I served on this committee for a handful of months, and then I get this random not random, but random email from Martin saying, people have been very impressed with what you've contributed so far. Would you consider running for the board if you were nominated? Like, what? You you must be joking. Of all people, you want me.
Speaker 2:Who am I? Because, you know, international society of anything is sounds huge. And it is big, and it it is important in my in my estimation. So I said timidly, okay. I'll do it.
Speaker 2:And so I ended up being elected to the board. This was then 2017. And within three months of joining the board, I said, you know, that idea that I had from talking to myself, like, that idea that I had about an EMDR training, I wonder if ISSTD would do it because EMDR has a horrible reputation in the in the dissociative disorders field for good reason too, because of how dangerous it can be when there's you're breaking through dissociation indiscriminately, and it's got a great reputation for it. But I said, what if we could do it safely? Like, what if we could teach people the stuff they need to know so that at the very least, they'd know how to assess people upfront to make sure that they were even an appropriate candidate for EMDR therapy.
Speaker 2:They barely even mentioned the the dissociative experience of scale screening tool when I got trained in EMDR, so I was flying blind is how you get into trouble really easily, really quickly with clients that have complex inner experience. So, I mentioned it, I think, in a board meeting. And Christine Forner, who is, at the time, was treasurer, but is now a past president, and is, is actually currently serving on the board as a a a director because she's addicted to ISSTD. She loves ISSTD something fierce. She said, oh, I'd be interested in doing this with you because she's trained in EMDR.
Speaker 2:And so I wrote the guts of the proposal, and she added to it, including the sort of the financial pieces, and we wrote up this rather complex proposal. Tried to think of everything. And since I knew what goes into develop developing a basic training, because I used to review them, I felt pretty prepared for what this could look like. And after some notable deliberation, the board actually approved the proposal. And I feel very proud to say that that basic training, which at this point is eighty one hours, was entirely developed by volunteers.
Speaker 2:Nobody got paid to do it. And it took us three years, and it was, I have never done project management before like that. But that was quite an experience, and I feel very, very proud of what we were able to accomplish. And it continues to evolve every time we now teach it. We get better at it and yeah.
Speaker 2:It's it seems to have actually already, I'm pleased to say, influenced other basic trainings to take dissociation more seriously. I don't know for certain that it's because of us, but I'd like to think it might be.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm so grateful, and I so appreciate you capturing that story. People have who people who listen to the podcast have already heard my experience of going through that, so I love how it brings us full circle.
Speaker 2:When Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how I got to meet you, actually.
Speaker 2:Yes. I remember. It was the first cohort.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And we wanted to make sure you were very generous because part of part of our interest was, you are clinically trained, and you also come from a place of, lived experience of dissociation. And you were gracious enough to agree to kind of help vet our material.
Speaker 1:I really appreciated it, and it was so good. And I know that in my case, at at the very end, I ended up auditing instead of finishing it. But I mean I went through that and practiced and did all the things, and I think I really could have. I think I was ready. What happened for me is that I worked very hard as suggested to find an a neutral safe something to work on when I was being the client.
Speaker 1:Because we practice both as you say so that everyone can practice. And I worked really hard on that. What I was not prepared for is that right the timing, right, like you said in your own story, right before our class started, I lost my therapist of five years.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:I well, I didn't think it would be relevant. I had not even Oh,
Speaker 2:you learned. Thought about it.
Speaker 1:Yes. So then sitting across from someone, well, it was on telehealth, but still sitting in my chair and someone else playing the role of therapist, I was like, that's what got me. And it was so frustrating because I've been so careful about all the steps. I loved the class and the didactics. Jill was in my group, and so I felt super safe.
Speaker 1:Like, there was nothing that could have gone wrong and then just snap. And it was like, I was Yeah. So frustrating, but that's what got me.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm really I really appreciate you sharing that. You know, something that I actually think really sets apart our training is that all of the trainers and the facilitators have a lot of experience, working with people with different experiences of dissociation across varying levels of complexity in in their practice. And so we're keenly aware of how challenging it can be. I do. And we we try to we work really hard to create a learning environment that actually feels protected, like, protected space for everyone so that they can they don't have to sacrifice their integrity, their their sense of dignity, and self respect while they're learning.
Speaker 1:I felt that. I really did experience that. And my my friendship with you and with Jill also has really developed out of safety. And I I don't think I could have even tried if if in any other situation. And I, at least for me, it just unfolded beautifully.
Speaker 1:And it was that one piece, and I think it would have been fine in a different season or if I had known to prepare for that piece. It just took me so by surprise. But also or and also. I'm working on saying and also instead of but also. And also, that's exactly why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Because when we start doing things like EMDR or using those sorts of tools, stuff comes up. You don't always know what your brain is going to bring up. And and so really to practice that, to have that model, to experience that, to see and receive the tending to that followed, like I was never, shamed or just left alone. People followed up on me or to check on me, and and I was able to communicate. And we got through that.
Speaker 1:But to experience in a healthy and safe way, that was the whole point of doing this kind of training with that kind of information.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was good. The other thing I I know we're I wanna be respectful of your time, but the other thing I really wanna talk about while you're here is the mid
Speaker 2:because Oh, the mid.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that earlier, but that's your your baby of babies.
Speaker 2:Well, it's I am I'm an adoptive parent. I I have a lot of ideas, and I this everything's got a story. I'm full of stories. To keep this one brief, though, what happened with the mid was so there was a you know, there's the MID, which has been around since in the in its current form, really, it's been around since 02/2004. Its official copyright date's 02/2006 because that's when it was officially published, in a real publication.
Speaker 2:And then there's the mid and now that's the questionnaire. And then there's the mid analysis, which is an Excel spreadsheet that the clinician or researcher uses to calculate the results from the mid questionnaire. And back when and that's why I, as I mentioned, joined ISSTD was to get hold of the mid. Because at the time, you could either contact Paul Dell or you could join ISSTD and members could get access to it. And that was in early twenty twelve.
Speaker 2:By the time 2015 came, Jennifer Madair, who is, my now my collaborator, we are collaborators on not just the mid but other things, she presented a ninety minute workshop at the EMDR International Association annual conference in Denver. And I kept getting up during the q and a because it appeared that of all the people in the audience, we were the two in the room that seemed to know most about the mid. At the time, I think there was a 29 it maybe was a 29 page mini manual to explain how to use the mid, and it was pretty bare bones. And I I chatted with Jennifer and, after after her presentation, and I asked her, would it be okay if we kept in touch? And she said, sure.
Speaker 2:And we didn't until, about three or four weeks before the ISSTD ISSTD annual conference in 2016 that I knew I was going to, and I sent her a note asking her if she was planning to go. And she said yes. I said, would you be willing to have lunch? Because I have an idea. I have a proposal for you.
Speaker 2:And my proposal and she did agree to go to lunch. And my proposal was to approach Paldell to ask him if he would allow us to overhaul the mid analysis to make it more user friendly and to create a proper manual. And I have I've said this in introduction to mid trainings. Jennifer, looking in that moment, kind of looked at me as if I had two heads. And then she said, okay.
Speaker 2:Let's approach him. And so we we were at the conference, and he was too. So we approached him at the conference, and he looked at us as though we had two heads and said, well, send me a proposal. We went to the next session. And instead of really paying close attention to the session, we were we may as well been writing on napkins.
Speaker 2:We were writing out a proposal to email to him. And he took us up on our offer, and he said, okay. Here's what you'll need. And that's how it all got started, and now we really he he has essentially handed us the mid. It it he said this is yours now.
Speaker 2:He's moved beyond it. He's working on other things. He doesn't really have an interest in the mid anymore, in at this point in his professional life. And so we are the keepers. We have adopted it, and we take care of it on his behalf.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 1:I just I'm loving this because we've just finished the annual conference this year in which he spoke about hypnotizability, which sparked something in my brain, which I emailed you some graphics and said, we need to talk about this, but I can't talk about that on the podcast till next year. So I just I I love the unfolding circle of all of this and how everything just keeps circling back. And really, that's one of my favorite things about the ISSTD conference is how approachable everyone is and how human everyone is and how connected we become through working to pull off our committees or volunteering or the conference and that time together just brainstorming and being with people who understand dissociation and so many different flavors of lived experience and all these things. And the like, what gets accomplished through that is just amazing and beautiful to me.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. You know, I feel like it's like true confessions today on system speak. And I, you know, I I recognize it's distinctly possible that clients of mine will listen and learn more about me than maybe they banked on. But, you know, I've never felt like I belonged anywhere, growing up. It was I was an outsider.
Speaker 2:I I kinda marched to my own drum. I didn't know that at the time. I just I felt like I didn't belong. And I've been a member of EMDRIA as long as I've been a member of ISSTD, and I've I've I'm I continue to volunteer with EMDREA. I'm very involved with EMDREA, and Jennifer and I were honored with the opportunity to present as plenary speakers together.
Speaker 2:Was it last year? No. Or was it two years? It was two years ago. Twenty twenty.
Speaker 2:I I don't remember. It's all a blur. Pandemic time, it makes everything a blur. But, I I have to say that I knew I belonged at ISSTD the first time I went to a conference, and I have never felt any differently. And I don't even know why I feel that way.
Speaker 2:All I know is that it feels right. And instead of saying I mean, there are always times that any organization has to say no or not yet. And I'm ISSTD's treasurer. I say it all the time now. No and not yet.
Speaker 2:And still, anytime someone has an idea and if they're willing to put the work into it, whether at the organizational level or even someone submitting a conference proposal or, you know, whatever it might be that some idea and it's a seedling, but they've they've they've got the ballast to go along with it. It's not just this flighty concept. People are much more willing there to say yes. Say more, than anywhere else I've ever encountered, and I really love that.
Speaker 1:I agree. I've seen that as well. I've experienced that as well, and, I I continue to watch that unfold and people learning and being receptive and even changing theories that they're known for adapting and learning. And and obviously, people are people and not not everybody is like that, but the majority of people I have encountered and had conversations with have been responsive and have been kind, and I have been safe there in those ways, and I can't not say that. I I I am grateful.
Speaker 1:I truly am. It has given me opportunities and courage, both personally and professionally, that I never would have had otherwise or been able to pull off. And I I'm so grateful. I really am.
Speaker 2:I actually feel exactly the same way that you just described. I don't think I my wings would have begun to spread in the way that they have without the support that I've gotten from colleagues that I've met through ISSTD. It's really and, ultimately, it's I I have always I've always thought I'm something is working working through me. I don't know what that is. I know it's bigger than I am.
Speaker 2:And, ultimately, this isn't really about me at all. It's about healing. And I keep that in mind to keep myself in check because, you know, we're all prone to develop large egos. And, I actually think that is the developing a large ego or an an an inflated self a sense of self importance is the enemy of fluidity, positive change, creativity, and even the healing process.
Speaker 1:That's powerful and beautiful both and just poetic, but so much truth ringing from that. And I am grateful. I thank you. Was there anything that you wanted to share today that you did not get to say or talk about?
Speaker 2:Oh, no. I don't think so. I was I had no idea it would go in this direction. I never know, you know, when I'm having any conversation with anyone. Actually, I was gonna like, there are lots of questions I have for you.
Speaker 2:But concern considering this is your show, I will press pause on on posing any of those. But I really appreciate you reaching out to me and, sort of allowing me to become, part of this tapestry.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. Your support really helps us feel less alone while we sort through all of this and learn together. Maybe it will help you in some ways too. You can connect with us on Patreon by going to our website at www.systemspeak.org. If there's anything we've learned, it's that connection brings healing.
Speaker 1:We look forward to connecting with you.