Keynote Speakers
The Board of ESTD has been fortunate to secure several internationally respected experts to address the conference. These keynote speakers have been invited because of their reputations and standing within the areas of Trauma and Dissociation and because of their strategic view of the issues to be addressed.
Details of the main conference plenary speakers are given below.
Details of the international training sessions to be held from 9am to 5pm on Thursday 8 April can be found here
Thursday 8 April 2010
Sandra Bloom (USA)
Professor of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health of Drexel University, Philadelphia
"The Sanctuary Model: A System for Addressing Organisational and Societally-Based Trauma".
Trauma is a central organising principle of human thought, feeling, belief, and behaviour that is largely overlooked in existing explanations of, and responses to, human behaviour. In traumatised organisations, communal and family life becomes organised around the denied, suppressed, and dissociated memories, feelings, and experiences of the past – which are then relived in the present. Clients living in traumatized societies who require assistance from the human service delivery system have typically experienced chronically stressful and often overwhelmingly traumatic events in their own lives that play a significant role in determining the nature and extent of their difficulties. Likewise, the staff members who populate the service delivery system bring their own past and present life circumstances into the caregiving environment. At the same time, caregiving environments – as a whole – are often chronically stressed as a result of changes in funding and are not infrequently traumatized by client deaths, staff injuries, media attacks and other experiences of violence and loss on an organisational or societal level. To deal with the interactive and often problematic parallel processes that emerge as a result of these countervailing forces, The Sanctuary Model establishes a shared, coherent, values-based method for creating a trauma-informed, safe organisational culture that can contend with the ongoing complex problems that confront all caregivers in difficult times.
Friday 9 April 2010
David Howe (UK)
Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work and Psychology, University of East Anglia
"The legacy of childhood neglect: an attachment perspective"
The importance of early parent-child relationships on neurological, emotional and psychological development continues to fascinate the developmental sciences. Attachment theory and research has played a central role in these advances. Of particular interest over recent years has been a growing understanding of what ‘good enough’ parents and caregivers bring to the relationships they have with their young children, particularly the ability they have to ‘keep the child in mind’. This notion of mind-mindedness, sensitivity and ability to mentalise one’s own and other people’s mental states has deepened our understanding of attachment and early psychosocial development. However, when these qualities of mentalisation are thin, distorted, or even absent in the child’s caregiving environment, the child suffers neglect – not just physically, but sensorily, emotionally and psychologically. Neglect in early childhood significantly increases the risk of insecure attachments, including disorganised and controlling attachments, psychopathology, and relationship problems. By reviewing current research and theory on neglect in the fields of attachment, development and psychopathology, the lecture aims to explore the relevance of severe deprivation in early life for an understanding of mental health concerns across the lifecourse.
Saturday 10 April 2010
Bruce Perry (USA)
Senior Fellow, The Child Trauma Academy, Texas
"The Neurodevelopmental Impact of Childhood Maltreatment: Implications for Programs, Practice, and Policy"
Experience shapes the organization of the developing child’s brain, which, in turn, influences the functional capacity of brain-mediated emotional, social, cognitive and physiological activities. Developmental trauma has profound impact on these normal developmental processes resulting in a host of neuropsychiatric (and other) sequelae. Insights into this process can be gained by understanding the sequential and use-dependent process of brain organization. Deprivation or abnormal patterns of sensory stimuli during critical periods of development results in altered brain organization and functioning. During an acute traumatic experience, abnormal or extreme patterns of activation of heterogeneous stress response patterns during these critical periods can lead to alterations in the neural networks mediating these adaptive responses. The unique pattern of activation of the two inter-related stress response patterns – hyperarousal (“fight or flight”) and dissociation during the acute event will predict the nature of the long-term neuropsychiatric sequelae. In many cases the adaptive balance of hyperarousal and dissociation can “neutralize” the toxic effects of an acute traumatic experience. Further, due to the sequential nature of neurodevelopment, similar “traumatic” experiences occurring at different times during development will impact the brain differently. The complex array of trauma-related sequelae in emotional, behavioral, social and physiological functioning can be understood in context of this “use-dependent” and “neuroarcheological” perspective. This presentation will review clinical work and research in the areas of abuse and neglect which support a neuroarcheological view of trauma. An introduction to a neurodevelopmentally-informed approach to clinical work, the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT), will be provided, suggesting new directions for clinical practice, program development and social policy initiatives.
Suzette Boon (Netherlands)
"Skills-based structured group treatment for patients with dissociative disorders: Opportunities and Challenges"
The general clinical consensus for the treatment of chronically traumatized individuals, including patients with DID or DDNOS, is phase oriented individual outpatient therapy. However, the early trauma pioneers, and thereafter many clinicians in the field of chronic trauma, have stressed the importance of group therapies for survivors of childhood abuse (Courtois, 1988, Herman, 1992). Such groups have proven invaluable for breaking through the isolation most survivors experience throughout their lives. It has been argued that being in a group with others who struggle with the same problems can be extremely helpful in overcoming fear, shame, guilt, loneliness and feelings of “being crazy”. Yet, clinicians who treat individuals with complex dissociative disorders have questioned the usefulness of group psychotherapy, especially unstructured, process-focused psychotherapy groups or peer-led support groups. Reported risks of such groups include decompensation, exacerbation of symptoms, acting out behavior in and outside the group, and dysfunctional relationships among group members. I will offer a more integrated view and present a highly structured, skills-based group treatment program specifically designed for those individuals with dissociative disorders, to be used in conjunction with individual therapy.
Following an overview of the literature on group treatment for complex traumatized patients and current treatment outcome studies, I will present some preliminary results of the past six years with a structured skills training group for individuals with complex dissociative disorders. This manual was developed for a structured group but has proven to contain useful material for patients in individual therapy as well. Opportunities and cautions will be evaluated. Future outcome studies will have to determine whether this course is an effective adjunct to individual psychotherapy with this patient group.
Details of the international training sessions to be held from 9am to 5pm on Thursday 8 April can be found here