ISSTD News

News You Can Use

News You Can Use

Volume 3 of Ellert Nijenhuis’s Trinity of Trauma Now Available World renowned trauma expert and ISSTD member, Ellert Nijenhuis completes his epic three volume “Trinity of Trauma” with volume three: The Trinity of Trauma: Ignorance, Fragility, and Control, Part III: Enactive Trauma Therapy. This recently released book provides the treatment focus to the trinity and is a must-read for any clinician interested in healing trauma. The previous two volumes have focussed on conceptual, theoretical, and empirical aspects of both trauma and dissociation. This latest book can be read either as part of the three volume series, or as a stand alone book. By way of background, Enactive Trauma Therapy, Nijenhuis’s unique therapy model holds that all people, including therapy survivors, are both embodied and environmentally embedded, their brain, bodies and environment both dependent on each other and co-occuring. As such trauma survivors bring forward a self, a world, and a self as a part of this world, in ongoing action. Thus, whenever interpersonal traumatization by significant others occurs, individuals may get caught up in affective and relational conflicts they cannot resolve on their own. What starts as a courageous effort to navigate a traumatizing life may at a later point in time become a serious problem. This book outlines the approach of Enactive Trauma Therapy as comprising the collaboration of two organism-environment systems: the patient and the therapist. Together the patient and therapist spawn new meaning and adequate actions – an interaction that resembles dancing: It takes pacing, mutual attunement, good timing, a sensitivity to balance, movement and rhythm, courage, as well as the ability and willingness to follow and lead. Therapy is indeed a dance and this book is an essential tool in both understanding that dance and enhancing our skills in doing that dance well with our clients. This book, and the previous two volumes of the ‘Trinity’, are available on Amazon. Remember to use your Amazon Smiles to make a donation to ISSTD! For those interested in an introduction to Enactive Trauma Therapy see Ellert’s article in the most recent edition of Frontiers (Click Here). Book Release: Treating Trauma in Christian Counseling ISSTD Fellow, Heather Davediuk Gingrich, together with her husband Fred Gingrich, have edited a recently-released book: Treating Trauma in Christian Counseling. The book discusses best practice treatment approaches for a vast range of traumas including military trauma, disaster recovery trauma, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, complex trauma, child abuse and intimate partner violence. There are additional chapters on working with child and adolescent trauma and neuropsychology and trauma. It contains specific information about clergy abuse, trauma and missionaries, and trauma care in developing countries. Dissociative disorders are explored as an integral part of the book. These topics are addressed, while also incorporating aspects of Christian spirituality (e.g., making use of clients’ spiritual resources in treatment, understanding therapeutic resistance couched as spirituality, and a biblical view of suffering. An extensive annotated bibliography of religion, spirituality and trauma that extends beyond Christian spirituality is included as an appendix. The book includes a chapter on ritual abuse and mind control co-authored by Heather and Alison Miller, (ISSTD Fellow and current chair of the Ritual Abuse Mind Control and Organised Abuse SIG). By adopting a sensitive, trauma informed and evidenced based approach to Christian trauma counselling this book aims to better equip Christian counsellors and church staff to deal with the complex issue of RA/MC/OA and other clients with DID, who may be unintentionally wounded through interventions such as exorcisms/deliverance prayer or even the promise of quick fixes. The book will be launched on December 19th at which point it will be available on Amazon and other on-line booksellers. Remember to use your Amazon Smiles and money is donated to ISSTD. Alternatively the book can be ordered from the publisher’s website, Intervarsity Press Academic (available now). It will also be available as an e-book at some point over the next couple of months. New book: From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse by Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller Psychotherapist and ISSTD Fellow, Alison Miller, has collaborated with one of her clients, an American licensed clinical social worker and survivor of mind control and ritual abuse, Wendy Hoffman, to write From the Trenches. Described as ‘a story in two voices’ this book provides a rare opportunity to have a dual insight into therapy from both therapist and client perspectives. In the introduction Wendy and Alison describe themselves as “two old women in our 70s who are still labouring and fighting in the trenches of the psychological and spiritual war against the evils of mind control and ritual abuse.” While Alison and Wendy worked very hard in therapy to undo Wendy’s mind control, they were each writing small articles, poems or essays on various topics related to ritual abuse and mind control. These pieces have been gathered together to form From the Trenches. Rather than having a logical development of ideas from chapter to chapter, this book has collected the essays into topical sections, ending with Wendy’s odes to the different kinds of inner parts who lived her mind-controlled life, and also live in other survivors’ inner worlds. The book can be read in any order. Some essays are directed primarily to survivors, others to therapists and support people. Alison reaches out to all survivors, pointing out the lies they may believe, giving them hope and skills for recovery; and Wendy talks about her own experiences as a slave and marionette, and also offers hope for healing and understanding of how to overcome the many obstacles on this path to freedom. For those inexperienced with the subject matter, it is suggested to read some of Alison and Wendy’s other work first as the material in this book is quite advanced and requires some preliminary understanding of mind control and ritual abuse. The book (and the authors’ previous publications) can be ordered from Karnac books: http://us.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/ Exciting new live discussion resource for parents and carers of children with trauma and dissociation. Integrate Families, the National Centre of Child Trauma and Dissociation in England, which provides services to children with trauma and dissociation, as well as their families/carers, has developed a unique video learning resource. “Conversations with IF” is an initiative by Integrate Families, and their training division BICTD, to help provide up to date and relevant information to parents/carers who are struggling with children who suffer from dissociative and other trauma related difficulties. Clinical Lead Therapist and ISSTD Fellow Dr Renée P. Marks has been integral to the development of twice monthly interactive discussions by trauma and dissociative specialists to assist parents and carers in managing the behaviours of their traumatised and dissociative children. Visiting specialists involved in the discussions include ISSTD Fellow Fran Waters who recently visited the UK for a two-day national conference on child trauma and dissociation. During the broadcast Fran Waters discussed the symptomatology of dissociative children and broke down the complexity of this problem into accessible and understandable terms for the parents. This information will empower parents and professionals to identify dissociative symptoms in the children and seek and deliver appropriate help for them. This wonderful resource airs live two evenings a month at 8:30 PM GMT for one hour. Parents and carers can access the video from the comfort of their own home and ask questions or make suggestions for further discussions via LIVE chat, or email questions in advance that may be answered during the live session or in a future broadcast. The discussion sessions are archived and these video episodes can be viewed at any time, making this resource uniquely accessible all around the world. The present discussion centres around the Star Theoretical Model which was developed by Fran Waters and the necessity of implementing each part of this model in the treatment of the children. This enables parents and professionals to gain a broader understanding of the integration of different essential theories in the treatment of this group of children and adolescents. This topic will be followed by the impact of medical trauma. This is an excellent resource that child and adolescent therapists can refer parents and carers to, for extra information and support. However it is also informative for the therapists themselves, and other professionals, to enable them to better understand dissociative children and adolescents. Website Link: www.cwif.tv A current discount is available using discount code: WatersUSA (Total discount: $3 off subscription)