Each year, the ISSTD Annual Conference brings Students and Emerging Professionals, or SEPs, into close contact with the clinical, research, and training community of the Society. Through structured gatherings and informal exchanges, the conference supports early career clinicians and researchers in building relationships, strengthening clinical reasoning, and finding community within the trauma and dissociation field.
One of the most widely attended events is the Students and Emerging Professionals Luncheon. Tables are intentionally mixed so that SEPs sit with senior clinicians, researchers, and educators. What unfolds tends to be direct, practical, and generous. People ask about clinical impasses, training paths, research ideas, and how others have navigated long term work in this field. The tone is collegial and open, which matters in a specialty where many early career clinicians are still forming their theoretical orientation and professional identity. If you’re attending this year’s conference as an SEP member, please make sure to RSVP to attend our luncheon!
The conference also functions as an active networking ecosystem where learning and contribution develop side by side. SEPs present posters and workshops, sometimes independently and often in collaboration with peers or mentors. Support for this starts before the conference itself. Special Interest Groups provide spaces where newer clinicians and researchers can bring developing projects and clinical questions. Last year, the Research SIG hosted a student focused forum that allowed SEPs to receive feedback on works in progress from experienced researchers. These kinds of settings help SEPs move from interest to participation with guidance along the way, and the Annual Conference becomes a natural extension of that momentum.
SEPs contribute to the Society in many visible and invisible ways. Many serve as volunteers and conference ambassadors, roles that support the functioning of the conference while also creating opportunities for connection and mentorship. I can speak to the dual benefit because I experienced it firsthand. My first volunteer role within ISSTD was as a conference ambassador, and it helped me become comfortable building professional relationships much more quickly. SEPs gain access to connections that rarely emerge in formal training environments, and ISSTD benefits from early investment in members who are already engaged in the life of the organization. For some, conference roles become an entry point into longer term involvement with committees and leadership. SEPs are valued and supported as leaders, both at the conference and throughout the year.
For many SEPs, the Annual Conference becomes a place where trauma- and dissociation-specific frameworks shift from abstract concepts to clinically usable approaches. Exposure to phase oriented treatment, attachment informed models, and dissociation-focused interventions often fills gaps left by graduate and internship training. Learning happens in workshops, and it also happens in conversations, shared meals, and ongoing professional relationships that continue well beyond the conference. I hope to see you there. SEPs receive a discount on their registration, and if you have any issues registering you can email cfas@isst-d.org for assistance. You can register and find full conference details on the official ISSTD Annual Conference registration page: Register for the 2026 ISSTD Annual Conference.