I drafted this from my hotel at the conference while still working on the welcome remarks I would give to fellow attendees. Moving back and forth between the two, I found myself returning to the question of what ISSTD actually is and how an organization like this continues to exist across time.
ISSTD is not simply a group of professionals, a conference, a journal, or a topic of study; nor is it the sum of those things. It is created through them and exceeds what any one of them could account for. We are not reducible to our components. Like the work we do, what we create together is shaped not only by what exists, but by how those elements come into relationship.
Each person who engages with this work is part of that process. It takes shape in clinical practice, teaching, supervision, consultation, and writing, and also in disagreement, curiosity, and the questions that remain open. It continues in the ways ideas are taken in, altered, and carried forward into rooms and relationships the rest of us may never see. There is no single place where this happens, and no single form that participation has to take.
The Annual Conference is one place where this can be easier to see. For a few days, the ongoing life of the organization becomes more concentrated. Connections that usually unfold over time are visible all at once. For those who were there, I hope there were moments where something about that became clearer, not just in the content itself, but in how it is taken up and carried forward.
For those who were not, nothing about that process is limited to being in the room. What sustains this organization does not originate in any single event. It is carried in the ways members continue to engage with the work in their own contexts, in forms that are often different from one another but no less central.
I have been thinking about this partly because of my own path into ISSTD. I knew about dissociation before I ever saw my first client, through a mentor who understood the importance of having a place to learn about forms of trauma that are often unseen or denied. In that sense, ISSTD shaped my clinical development from the beginning and continues to move through my work, and (I hope) into the work of others.
I have also been thinking about it because I am serving, this year, in the role of President. That role inevitably places me in relationship with decisions, responsibilities, and visible points of organizational life. But, what sustains my attention in this role is that this organization is being made and remade through the participation of its members, across time, in ways that exceed any one person’s vantage point and any one moment of gathering.
As we move forward, I hold in mind that ISSTD is not something we step into at certain moments and leave behind at others. It is something being created, in different ways, wherever this work is taken up.
I am grateful to be part of that process, and for the many ways each of you contribute to it. You are already part of this shared space of creation, in whatever way that is possible for you right now. Thank you for your membership and engagement with this work. We’re lucky to have you.
Warmly,
Abigail Percifield, PsyD
President, ISSTD