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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.
Over:
Speaker 2: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 3:Rachel Walker is a licensed and EMGEA approved EMDR consultant specializing in the treatment of trauma and dissociation. In addition to seeing clients out of her office in Oakland, California, Rachel teaches, consults, and provides mentorships at colleges and nonprofits, as well as within the mental health community at large. She has created an in-depth training for mental health professionals on the fundamentals of treating trauma and dissociation called At the Crossroads of Trauma Therapy, which integrates theories, interventions, and information from many of today's most effective trauma models and research sources: EMDR, structural dissociation, parts work, comprehensive research model, attachment research and theories, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and psychobiology. Rachel is also the founder of the online platform traumarecoverystore.com which provides simple hands on tools for improving trauma treatment and promoting the self healing process. She has created numerous tools for therapists and survivors alike including the Trauma Recovery Guidebook for Therapists in English, Spanish, and Icelandic.
Speaker 3:The Trauma Recovery Handbook for Survivors, also in English, Spanish, and Icelandic, and NeuroPeeps, instinctive defense parts dolls designed to facilitate psychoeducation in parts work. The primary mission of the trauma recovery store is to demystify and destigmatize trauma and dissociation. To this end, the store offers products that provide concrete information, practical tools, and simple maps for making treatment and recovery more transparent, approachable, and navigatable. Her books, tools, and trainings are infused with simple everyday language, step by step guidance, and hope. Rachel is passionate about integrative and flexible approaches to treating trauma.
Speaker 3:She understands how well such approaches resolve symptoms across a wide spectrum of trauma related suffering. Through this way of working many more people are being helped which is enormously heartening. Welcome Rachel Walker.
Speaker 1:It's really exciting for me to be here, Emma. I'm a fan of yours. My name is Rachel Walker, and I'm a licensed therapist in the state of California, in the Bay Area. I have an office in Oakland. And I am a trauma focused therapist, and so I have a practice.
Speaker 1:And then a number of years ago, I started designing and delivering trainings for younger therapists, or more newly trained therapists coming up behind me, in the treatment of more complex trauma and dissociation. And I have a lot of training and experience foundationally as an EMDR therapist. And then my more, I guess I would say, multifaceted training came later. I probably really stuck with EMDR for maybe about ten years, or maybe closer to thirteen years. And then I started to layer in more perspectives, more models, more interventions.
Speaker 1:And so at this juncture, my focus is really on intermodal methods and ways of treating trauma and dissociation, and teaching it. And then I also started to create small tools for helping both therapists and trauma survivors to actually work the healing more effectively in session and for survivors to continue that work outside of session on their own, because it seems that that speeds up the healing and helps people feel even more empowered in the process of of addressing their own symptoms. So anyway, so I also make these tools and I sell them on a website, traumarecoverystore.com. So, I think that about covers me.
Speaker 3:I was not nervous until you said you were a fan. I know I was like, oh wait, what? I'm a real fan.
Speaker 1:I listen to your podcast and I learn so much and I just really am very, very inspired by both the work that you're doing and the mission behind it. I resonate with it so much. And I'm just captivated by the content too. I felt very honored that you reached out to me and wanted to have me on your podcast. I was like, wow.
Speaker 1:My parts were excited.
Speaker 3:That's so funny. Now I feel shy. I was all ready to go. It's interesting. I mean, I say that not not because of fan girls, which is becoming a joke on the podcast as people start to meet each other in real life.
Speaker 3:But Yeah. Because clinicians specifically, I know that they listen because they reference it or their clients tell me about it, but they don't always talk to me directly about it. And so it's hard to get it's like driving in the dark or something. Like, it's hard to get feedback of, I don't know if what I'm doing is even okay or helpful other than we're just still going. And so I it's helpful to hear that.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It is very, very and in fact, I
Speaker 1:heard about your podcast from other therapists who told me, who turned me onto it, who've been learning from it and getting to becoming better healers, better, more attuned, more informed, more empathic, through you and your work. My experience is that you're making a really big contribution to the field.
Speaker 3:That's very kind. It has been a rough season. If you listen to the podcast, people know it has been a rough season. And so things got a little dark for a while, but we're in a better place now and trying to get things going again and restarting. And so that's encouraging.
Speaker 3:It gives me something to hold on to that what just to keep going. So I appreciate that. But we're going to talk about you and your work, which is way easier than talking about me and my work. Okay. So tell me back up just to the beginning.
Speaker 3:Tell me how did you even learn about trauma dissociation?
Speaker 1:Well, through my own life, I guess. Had a healing story, healing journey of my own. And even I think when I was in the middle of that, not even really fully gained a lot of traction, I went to graduate school in therapy. And of course, I learned a ton there. But in some ways, I think the biggest learning came after graduate school.
Speaker 1:And it's always been kind of a thing for me. Why didn't I learn about this in school? I should have learned about it. So after I graduated, I started to hear a ton about EMDR. And so when I was doing internship hours towards licensure, I took a course.
Speaker 1:And it blew my mind. I suddenly felt like I knew where I was. It so resonated. It made so much sense to me and to my body, my own body, my own brain. It helped enormously with my own healing work.
Speaker 1:Of course, I went and did EMDR therapy as a client, as a survivor. And then I just started sort of voraciously wanting to know how to do it better. Because even though you do the training, there's just a ton that they aren't able to convey in the training. There's lots and lots of subtleties. And so I started to join lots of consult groups and study with people who are sort of more masters in the field.
Speaker 1:Got a lot of help with that. And what happened was that over time, as I got more and more trained in it, I started to notice that it wasn't the end all be all. It just didn't do everything that the training kind of promised, and I didn't understand why. And that is what eventually led me to start studying outside of the world of EMDR and learning much more about dissociation dissociation and and the the relevance relevance of of attachment, attachment, and sort of putting all those pieces together. So, I would say it was an evolution which was twofold.
Speaker 1:On the one hand, driven deep down by my own search for my own wholeness. And then there was on top, kind of this professional layer. And both of those have continued along kind of in parallel the entire time. I And would say when I really learned about dissociation, I had another massive revelation. And I don't know how to say this, guess kind of like a boost in my own co consciousness around my own experience.
Speaker 1:And so, would say those two have kind of moved along in tandem. The personal experience and the professional development and growth. I hope that wasn't too general an answer.
Speaker 3:No, that is great. It's interesting. By the time this is able to air on the podcast, the listeners would have heard that I have done eye movements for the first time. So it's interesting. I like what you're saying about how it can be a really useful tool and a part of therapy, but in and of itself, it is not everything.
Speaker 3:I think that that can be that is a really, really important piece. I know there's also a lot of people who are really hesitant to do eye movements with people who have severe dissociation. But when you have appropriate training, so like the ISSTD course or Jamie Merritt or other local resources around all over the world that I don't know about, that it can be a really powerful and useful tool for us. Just to recap quickly, for us, we had a trauma that was very specific related to a previous therapist that was making it difficult to reengage in therapy now that we have another good therapist. And so that's what we ended up doing eye movements about, just very specifically about that piece.
Speaker 3:And we share about that on an episode coming up, but I found I was really hesitant to do it for a long time. I only once before had a therapist who could do eye movements, but we weren't able to stay with them because of insurance. It wasn't a shopping thing. They were a great therapist. It was an insurance thing.
Speaker 3:But doing it in this context, what it did for us was take away, like we were not functioning, like it was bad. Those two years of the pandemic and this therapy trauma were so, so brutal that we were not well. It was really kind of scary. And what the eye movements did for us was contain and resolve that. Not that we could change it.
Speaker 3:It didn't do anything to change the circumstances, but I feel like it put us back together enough that my own skin could contain me again. And that I could contain what had happened enough in memory time that I could start moving forward. And then that that just lifted so much of the loop. Like it got me out of that loop I was in, that trauma loop and that betrayal loop. And it was so, so fascinating to feel that.
Speaker 3:And then I was like, oh, good. This piece is all done. We can cross it off. And then something else came up, and then something else came up. And I will be just doing something like playing with my kids or cooking dinner, and then like insights just start landing.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, oh, this EMDR stuff is wild how it can do that. But also that it's still an ongoing thing. I can't just get out of therapy by doing EMDR.
Speaker 1:That's right, but it's really cool, Emma, to hear that you had an experience of the power of EMDR. If it's used well, like no matter where someone is in their journey, or how much dissociation has been needed, it can really be helped when it's well placed and done carefully. And like you say, with a lot of intention about what it is you're gonna work on, and how you're gonna work on it, and appropriate expectations. So it is a very, very potent, powerful tool. And I remember when I was mostly in the EMDR world, how excited I was about it.
Speaker 1:And I just felt like everyone needs to know about this. But of course, since kind of bumping up against its limitations, and then going outside of the EMDR world to see the ways in which other models and other areas of research and thought around trauma and the legacy of trauma in human brains and bodies, how much wisdom, how much knowing there is even outside of that modality, the thing that's super exciting is the ability to kind of start to merge the knowing between, for example, EMDR and some of the best of structural dissociation, or EMDR and some of these other modalities. So, as much as there's limitations to EMDR, as you're talking about it, has a huge contribution to make. And I love and feel really good about the fact that it's in my tool bag. So I'm so glad that you got a chance to experience its power in a positive way.
Speaker 3:How did you talking about your tool bag. How did you decide, okay, I'm just gonna start throwing resources out into the world turn into this superhero with all these different tools and things that you're providing in your shop? That
Speaker 1:was let's see. That began as a playful collaboration with a colleague, as well as a little bit of, I don't know, fatigue within the practice, in that there's so much information and doing that you have to go, from the therapist perspective, you have to repeat over and over and over again, with survivors who come for help. And this colleague and I were in a really playful space, and there was this feeling of like, what if we could consolidate some the information that needs to be repeated? That is the most potent information that clients use over and over again, and that we find ourselves needing to introduce over and over again? What if there were these tools that were playful and colorful, and it made doing that part of the therapy fun again, but also maybe even more impactful for the clients?
Speaker 1:Like, could there be a way that it could stick better if there were all these pictures involved, and really simple language? So originally, a colleague and I wrote a book together with some of the most basic information about trauma that we just happen to be needing to repeat over and over again with clients. And that was sort of the beginning of the whole thing. It was super fruitful, really, really fun to do. And then my colleague and I started to get very excited about different aspects of the work.
Speaker 1:So she went off and wrote her own thing. And I wrote the books that you see in my shop that are just from me. And I guess the basic answer is the inspiration came from in the work with clients, and noticing what aspects of what we were doing could actually be helped, both for therapist and for client, by having something visual, or tactile, to engage with together. So that's how it came up. I love this.
Speaker 1:Oh, go ahead. And I kinda can't help it. I'm kind of a maker, I'm a maker. And so, I think I have parts that love to create. And so, engaging, having a place for those parts of me in my work has also been rather liberating and fulfilling.
Speaker 1:So I'll just say that personally. I love that
Speaker 3:you acknowledge this because I know it's something we experience also the client side of things of how many times we have to go over and over and over and over some of these things because I can't keep it in. It's like like my brain is the strainer in the sink. Like, it just keeps slipping through. And it's so hard to keep some of those pieces in even though they're so simple. Like, cognitively, I can get it.
Speaker 3:And over time, I can hold more and more pieces, and I start shaping it like it feels like clay or something. Right? And and I can start working with it and incorporating things, but it is so hard to get new information in all the way down like dominoes. And when you have these tools that are tactile, one of the things that I love about them is that it adds parts and brain processing access to that in different ways. That did not come out in English, but it adds access.
Speaker 3:I'm following you, Emma. I'm following you. It adds access from Ford. It adds access for different parts and from different brain processing aspects. Like, it makes it accessible in a way that it wouldn't otherwise be.
Speaker 3:And that feels very somatic in some ways, right? Yes, that's right. That's right. And I mean,
Speaker 1:just to normalize, it actually takes it actually everybody a lot of repetition to really learn something. I mean, I think that's just, in a way, underemphasized in all areas of human life. And it takes a lot of repetition. I mean, have children, so you can see that. Like how much repetition it takes to actually have something become so familiar that it feels like your own.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of repetition. So that is super normal. And the thing about being able to learn through many different sensory channels is I don't know, what do we say about that? I think it helps with the learning, because not everybody is just auditory, and not everybody is just visual. But not only that, some of us, if you combine those senses while you're learning, like there's something to look at and something to hold, And colors and all kinds of learning tools that actually bring out more of your senses.
Speaker 1:It can really make the moment when you're trying to convey something, or trying to ingest something, much more potent. So I'm definitely all about that. In my own journey, the theme of learning was huge. I also struggled with learning. And so I love things to go slow.
Speaker 1:I love them to be broken down. I love them to be presented to me multimodally, so I could feel it on the skin, or I can feel it in the body. I can see it in pictures and images with my eyes. Reading comes last for me. So, you know, in my work, I like the words to be as simple as possible and not be the main thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah. So I really relate to that. And how important the learning is, and how slow it can be, and how it can be helpful to have the information come in in many different ways.
Speaker 3:That's so interesting, because I think words come first for me, but I think that that is a defense. And so sometimes learning about things or studying about things are still a way of avoiding feeling them. Because if I can study hard enough and intensely enough and keep it cognitive enough, then I still don't have to get I still don't have to go there, but it gives the illusion that I'm going there.
Speaker 1:Yes. At the same time, if that's a strength that's happening in your brain and body, if there comes a time when there is a motivation or a need to feel that same learning, having a really strong cognitive understanding can actually become a help to that. So our defenses, you know, if that's how you understand it or experience it, our defenses can actually really help us when it comes time to go a little bit deeper. Knowing something cognitively very, very strongly can help it feel scary to touch it. Emma, can I ask you a I was wondering when you saw the dolls, or saw this latest thing that I have been making for trauma treatment, the dolls, autonomic defense dolls?
Speaker 1:I'm wondering what that was like for you when you saw the images, or what inspired you to reach out to me. I reached out to
Speaker 3:you because it was something like I had never seen before. And because the day before you posted about that and before I saw the link to go to see the picture of the dolls. Yeah. The night before, we had had a group on the community in which it was completely unplanned, but it was a it was just a peer support group. But through a series of things that happened during group and in conversation, it ended up for about thirty minutes being a Zoom room full of littles.
Speaker 3:And it was the most fascinating thing I've ever seen, but they also sort of it was I don't feel like it was a bad thing. I feel like everyone kept each other safe really well, and we sort of climbed back out of it into more, like, teenage parts. They were playing with some filters and having fun and telling jokes and things, and kind of got back up to more adult parts and actually had some of the most profound deep conversations about therapy and theory and their own experiences and what's helpful and what's not. And it was the most fascinating experience I've ever had in group on the community. But because of that, I was very attuned to the perspective of littles.
Speaker 3:And it was interesting because I have my own phobia about that and and lots of reasons why. But when that happened in group, I panicked. Internally, I panicked because I feel that responsibility. Not that I am the boss of the groups. I feel like everyone's regulating really well, but I do because it's on my website.
Speaker 3:I feel really responsible to make sure that they're safe and that there's nothing that's gonna get in the way of people's therapy or things like that. And so I became very anxious about that because I thought, how can I help this room full of littles? And I didn't really need to because it's not a therapy group. Right? So I had to talk myself through it.
Speaker 3:But I was watching this unfold, and I suddenly felt out of my element because I didn't know how to help them because I don't know how to do that for myself. And so I kind of had my own panic, and then that worked its way into a freeze, and everything kind of unfolded okay, and the group was amazing, and they did great, and everything was fine. But it kind of left me scrambling because I was at that time not willing to look at that part of myself, and it's actually causing some harm. I mean, not harm harm, but it's it's getting in the way of therapy. Like, need to deal with this.
Speaker 3:And so I have been thinking, like, how do you do that? And my my intuitive response is, well, deal with inside kids the way you would with outside kids. But that doesn't work because I'm not the part that deals with outside kids. And so to access that information also crosses like amnesia walls or or communication walls that like, was all of a sudden asking me to do things I was not prepared to do and how to manage all of that. It all escalated just in my head, not in real life.
Speaker 3:Yes. Very quickly internally it escalated, like I it just I kind of had a falling apart internally just privately by myself about all of this. And then there, when I was in work mode and clicking on things and just going through emails and doing my work and all of that, there was your email. And I clicked on the link because that's what you do when you read emails. And I saw them, and it fascinated me because I recognized how having something to touch would add to that embodied experience of whatever you were doing.
Speaker 3:So it was more than I knew from the beginning that it was more than just cute dolls because they are pretty cute. Right. But I I I thought maybe this is a way for those of us who are more phobic of getting in touch with that or those parts who are more trauma holder ish or more skittish or more scared or whatever is going on from their perspective that I'm so out of tune with Yes. Maybe that's a way to bridge that gap just a little bit in a way that is safe, in a way that doesn't push too hard. So I was very curious about that.
Speaker 3:And so rather than again, rather than doing that directly myself or even waiting because I was so anxious about it, I shared the link in the community on the website and people went nuts for it. Like they loved it. They thought they were so cute. Everyone was so excited. People ordered them.
Speaker 3:People have sent brought them to group and talked about them. How would you use them in therapy yourself? What do you do with them? Oh, well,
Speaker 1:so there's so many ways. In a way, I really should organize my thoughts about that. But there's so many ways, because when you are learning how to be with littles, be with young parts of self, there are just many, many ways of of learning the I guess one thing you're saying is to sort of cross parts, because some parts are gonna be more comfortable with that kind of a role than others. So learning what those parts know about how you be with children, that would be one layer and one level. So just practicing together, like being in a more soothing, calming, the one delivering that kind of vibe.
Speaker 1:Right? Learning that, if not all the parts are familiar with being in that role, the dolls can be a way that the parts pass information about how you do that. So that's one level. The other level can be actually imagining without actually doing it. If you know something about your littles, it can be an intermediary.
Speaker 1:Let's just imagine this is one of my littles that has been skittish or that we've been skittish with each other. And we'll just practice a little bit, you know, what it would look like if we were gonna go in. That would be another way. Once again, most of the way I use the dolls is very improvisational in the moment, when something is happening in the moment. So what I'm talking about now is sort of a little bit of a, these are some ideas, but the actual implementation is much more attuning to what's actually happening in a session.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that's super helpful for the therapy is that if some internal caretaking or a new moment between, let's say, a more grown up part and a young part has been able to happen in a way that actually was regulating new felt good. The dolls, especially if the survivor, the client, has some, is that then the dolls can facilitate them practicing that on their own, in a very specific way. So, the dolls can be used. The therapist can say, you know, use the doll to contact the little, but you're not going to do anything except just practice sitting side by side. And you can use the doll as a way to practice that on your own without going too far.
Speaker 1:So they can also be a bridge between something that was able to happen in session, that then maybe in a contained specific way can be practiced on one's own to start getting better at it. The inside feeling experience of being with the littles in a productive way. Step by step by step. So these are some ideas, you know. And one thing that happens with the dolls in my own practice is that some of the way they're being worked with is actually outside my purview.
Speaker 1:The people will come in and say, I did my homework and the dolls were a conduit to that. And so the clients are also finding their own way to bring the healing work into their relationship with the dolls, and doing creative things. And so I don't always know exactly all the ways they're being used.
Speaker 3:What are the dolls that you have, and how do you explain those concepts?
Speaker 1:So the dolls are very simple representations, almost like, in a way, kind of cartoon like, very, very simple, of autonomic defenses, fight, flight, freeze, submit an attachment cry. So that's another way of using the dolls, is actually, it's super helpful for the therapist in kind of explaining some of the fundamental information about trauma and dissociation that's so important to the healing work, where the therapist is really helping the trauma survivor to understand better what their symptoms mean, and maybe how they got started. Because when you're really in the grips of the symptoms, it's very, very challenging from the inside to be oriented. And lots of scary ideas about what's going on can take root. And so, grounding the symptoms in some of the biological science can be extremely calming and also orienting.
Speaker 1:So, one way the dolls can be used, and that I use them, is that they are simple representations of our hardwired autonomic defenses that turn on unconsciously, just because we are mammals, after all, when there's a perception of threat. And so, for example, fight flight are the, I say, the most popular, common in the zeitgeist autonomic defenses. Fight flight. So under a perceived threat externally, our fight response may come on, which is like, know, our organ attack. Or flight, like when you see a really scared cat or a scared animal, phew, kind of out of here.
Speaker 1:So there is a doll that represents the fight response, and a doll that represents the flight response. There's also a doll that represents the freeze response, and the submit response, which is more, I think most people experience the submit response in the shame category. Most people do. It's not the only way that submit circuitry is expressed, but it's one of the most commonly recognized ways. And then there's attachment cry, which is the automatic calling out for help and contact.
Speaker 1:That is also part of our autonomic defense system. And so that's how I explain them. And one thing I say additionally, that I think is kinda cool, is that the dolls represent the most pure, in a way young expressions of these autonomic defenses. As we age, that's those same circuitry, they become more complex and even habituated. And some of my other tools kind of explain the way they start these same autonomic defense circuitry, how they start to look and feel as we age into adulthood.
Speaker 1:And that's where some of the picture books and stuff comes in. But the dolls are really representations of them in their most young, most pure expression.
Speaker 3:I'm just sitting with that part about the most young and the most pure. I think I needed that framework reminder. So you talked about parts of you being a maker. If we go to Maker Faire with Rachel Walker, what else have you made in your
Speaker 1:shop? Well, I have made a very couple colorful illustrated books. One is is for therapists, but it's for therapists to communicate some of this learning. The stuff I was just talking about, about autonomic defenses, one of the kind of pieces of information that's in the book. But the book has been made to be interactive.
Speaker 1:So what that means is, it's not just for the therapist to read for their own edification. It's for the therapist to read with the client, and for them to engage with the information. So the client can actually seek the pictures, the simple language, and the therapist and the client can talk about how does this information relate to your experience. One of the things that's so important about that is that, this is just in my experience, that really welcoming the collaboration with the survivor that they know a lot already? And how much does the scientific information fit with your internal experience?
Speaker 1:Forming that collaboration around the information can be a really wonderful beginning to a therapy, but also a landing place to continue coming back to together. And forming a collaboration around what actually is happening, and from a scientific perspective, and does this make sense to your body and your brain? Do you relate to it? So the book is really a platform for beginning that collaboration. So it's highly readable, big letters, big print, big pictures, for the two of you to be sitting down together, looking at this and seeing how it relates to you as the client.
Speaker 1:So that's one product. And then the other is a similar book that's just for the client to take home so that they can repeat the information. So the languaging is even more simple. Some parts of the information will be more relevant during one portion of their healing journey. And then later on, might, if they have the book themselves, it's smaller, it's not hardcover, it's less expensive.
Speaker 1:So I'm hoping kind of affordable for clients to have. And in fact, many therapists buy the book for their clients, especially during COVID too, where it's nice for the client to have a version of some of this information. And so even through the screen, you're both working with the same template and body of information and pictures. So there's a book that's just for clients, and then there's a book that's for clients and therapists to share together. And then I also have made some direct interventions for either clients to work with on their own.
Speaker 1:They're very safe for the most part. I would say they're safe. They're safe, gentle. You might get more traction out of them if your therapist had the script and was helping to walk you through the exercise. But there's three or four of those on the website.
Speaker 1:And then, there's also some of the pieces of information. I actually had clients who wanted some pieces of the information. I'll just give you an example. Let's say autonomic defenses. Fight, flight, freeze, submit attachment, cry.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I keep forgetting about this information. I wish you had postcards so I could just carry that one data point in my purse. So when I started to get or in my bag, when I started to get activated, I would have it there with the picture. And so I decided I'd make postcards of some of the most salient pieces of information so that clients could actually have them, and then there's a little intervention you can try on your own to see if it you know, if you can gain a little bit of distance from whatever is happening. So the postcards are also there for in the moment need.
Speaker 1:You can carry them around. So those are I think that's what I have.
Speaker 3:I feel like you have a whole toy store, and I'm a little frustrated. I didn't know about it before now.
Speaker 1:Well, it's fairly new. I would say maybe just maybe two years it's been up, so not very long.
Speaker 3:What would you want to share with someone who is newly diagnosed with
Speaker 1:a dissociative disorder? Oh my gosh, I would just wanna say there's hope. I mean, sometimes that can feel very relieving and wonderful. And maybe other times it could be, or to other parts, it could feel really not okay. And even not true.
Speaker 1:Right? So I guess I would want to say, it's okay. And in one way or another, we're all in there on some spectrum. And that there are ways to feel really empowered from within that experience, to know better what it is, to get help with becoming strong enough to shift that experience, if that's what you want. You're not alone.
Speaker 1:I guess I would would want it if there's hope, you're not alone, we're all in there to some degree. And, much can be done for feeling a sense of feeling more oriented, feeling more in control of the experience, and feeling more empowered. That you can make choices as the healing gets started. You can make choices all along the way about how much of this you want and how much of having things the way they've been feels right to you. Basically I would just wanna say it's okay and there's hope.
Speaker 3:That'd be the biggest thing. What about for clinicians who are new to treating dissociative disorders? What would you recommend for them or how would you talk to them about dissociative disorders?
Speaker 1:Well, I do talk to clinicians a ton about this through my teaching and consulting. And for right now, I would say, it's massively important to understand what dissociation is, to track it in yourself, and to have a very grounded and thorough education, in how to attune to someone who is experiencing dissociation, and be able to work with that in a patient and skillful way. And it's so important, I would say very strongly, get trained. Just get trained. It's just part of the human experience, and if we're not trained in it, are under tooled.
Speaker 1:We are under tooled. And potentially could do more damage than good if you don't know about it and also feel comfortable about how to work with it. And that you're working with your own dissociation. So you know it from the inside out. So I would definitely say get trained.
Speaker 1:And if there have been some specific, actually, authors or trainers that have been incredibly impactful for me. So I offer a training, and that too is listed on the store website for people if they are interested in that. I only do it right now, maybe about once a year, but it does come around. Reading, I mean, seems, Emma, that you do a lot of promoting of certain kinds of information that has been foundational for you, and that you feel is incongruent with your podcast. So I wanna make sure that I'm supporting that.
Speaker 3:I would say
Speaker 1:trainings that kind of integrate. For example, I started out in EMDR, and then I came across a trainer. Her name is Kathleen Martin. And she does a very, very good training in interweaving structural dissociation with EMDR. And I would say, for me, that was a foundational training, is learning about that theory, getting very well read in it, and understanding how it interfaces with a trauma model that's all about processing memories.
Speaker 1:How you need to know about both. So, that's an example. And, yeah, is there anything more about that feels that like it would be important?
Speaker 3:That was good. What about your own training? What does that sort of cover if someone is interested in contacting you for that?
Speaker 1:Oh, for my training? Mhmm. My training covers an integration of EMDR, structural dissociation, attachment theory, and parts work models. So, ego state therapy and internal family systems, as well as comprehensive resource model, which is another parts based to trauma and dissociation based treatment. So I, which does come up a little bit in my training.
Speaker 1:But for the most part, it is an integration of these four primary theories and ways of working. EMDR, structural dissociation, attachment theory and interventions, as well as parts work. And so my training, it's a four day intensive, and it basically demonstrates how all of these fit together to make a cohesive picture about trauma and dissociation, and where it starts from. Basically the legacy of trauma and attachment disruption. And then how to begin interventions to, mostly in my training, I'm highly focusing on the dissociative piece, and how to begin to interface with that in a way that is healing, as well as very
Speaker 3:gentle. And so that's the focus of the training and the models that are included. Thank you so much. What else would you like to share? Is there anything that we left out that you wanted to cover today?
Speaker 3:Or any other questions that you have?
Speaker 1:I think that I want to I'd like to close with some real appreciation of the of of you, Emma, again. I mean, I know we open that way, but I feel that the field of treatment for trauma and dissociation has had a terrible kind of lack of input from people who are living with dissociation. So the way in which you are bringing this community into the dialogue is hugely important. And it means much more of an actual collaboration between survivors and therapists who do genuinely long to help. And so, us getting much more educated about things from your perspective and your knowing from the inside is essential for us to actually be able to really make a difference.
Speaker 1:And so, I'm very appreciative, and I think I feel gratitude for your courage. And I really mean that from my heart because I don't think we can help each other as a species unless we're really learning from each other. So thank you for your work and for being a spokesperson. I think you do a beautiful job of it. And your podcast is just so engaging.
Speaker 1:I love it and your work in general. So thank you. And thank you for reaching out to me. I'm very honored.
Speaker 3:Well, don't have words for all that, but thank you. I'm learning to just say thank you.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 3:I appreciate you coming on, and I appreciate you letting me share the link in the community. And we will post your links on the podcast as well just because they're great tools, and that's that's so much to navigate. Even even putting all those models together and the nuances in that structural dissociation is such a non shaming way to normalize what happens with DID especially, but also OSDD or other dissociation. It's it's has its own limitations in that it's not being in it not being a multiplicity model. And so I feel like we almost have got a model fine tuned that really, really works.
Speaker 3:We're so, so close. And I feel that too. We're close. We're close. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes. And being able to talk about those things and and not use just one thing and think that is therapy, keeping that framework of things as tools. I appreciate that perspective, and I appreciate you being in the world teaching people how to help and how to care and most of all, how to connect authentically. And I appreciate that about you and your work and that you let us share those links. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing. One of the ways we practice this is in community together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
Speaker 2:We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too, being human together. So, yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.