Dr. Mary-Anne Kate is a researcher specializing in interpersonal trauma, attachment, and post-traumatic disorders. She talks with Lisa about her research paper published in 2021, titled: Childhood Sexual, Emotional, and Physical Abuse as Predictors of Dissociation in Adulthood.
Hear how Dr. Kate identified predictors of dissociation in adults, and demonstrated that women who disclosed being sexually abused had a 106-fold risk of clinical levels of dissociation.
For her vast amount of work, Dr. Kate was awarded the Chancellor's Doctoral Research Medal from University of New England, and the David Caul Award from the ISSTD for her PhD on childhood maltreatment, parent-child dynamics, and dissociation. In 2021, Dr. Kate won the Morton Prince award for Scientific Research.
She’s currently the Lecturer Practitioner for the Master of Professional Psychology program at Southern Cross University and holds an adjunct research position at the University of New England.
Dr. Kate’s publications and MID-60 resources are available via ResearchGate
This episode was produced by Bright Sighted Podcasting
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW
- This transcript was auto-generated
Lisa Danylchuk 0:02
Welcome to the How we can heal podcast. My name is Lisa Danylchuk and I'm a psychotherapist specializing in complex trauma treatment. I'm a graduate of UCLA and Harvard University, and I'm thrilled to share these reflections on how we can heal with you today. Welcome back to the how we can heal Podcast. Today we're welcoming onto the show, Dr. Mary-Anne Kate. Dr. Mary-Anne Kate is a psychology lecturer and researcher specializing in interpersonal trauma attachment and post traumatic stress. She published a study showcasing the prevalence of dissociative disorders on college campuses, which includes 98 Different studies. With data from more than 30,000 subjects. It's a pretty big deal. Dr. Kate is also a lecturer in the Masters of Professional Psychology and psychological science programs at Southern Cross University. She's written textbook chapters and articles on post traumatic stress, dissociative disorders, complex PTSD and somatic disorders. Dr. Kate also developed the multi dimensional inventory of dissociation. This is the 60 item version referred to as the mid 60. To help clinicians identify post traumatic and dissociative symptoms, the mid 60s Is the screening tool recommended by EMDR trainers throughout Europe, North America and Australia. And recommended by Harvard Medical School, Marianne and I initially connected through our work with the International Society for the Study of trauma and dissociation, and we became fast friends. I so appreciate her thorough research, her dedication to the work, and her general warmth and kindness. I appreciate every minute I get to spend with her. And I'm thrilled to share that time with you today. Let's dive into our conversation. Dr. Mary and Kate, I am so excited to have you on the how we can heal podcast. You're amazing. I want everyone else to know one that you're amazing, and to about the incredible research you've put out into the world. So thank you so much for being here today. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 2:04
It is an honor to be here and a pleasure to talk with you, Lisa. You're just such an inspiration. So sharing this time with you. It's going to be wonderful. Oh,
Lisa Danylchuk 2:14
Thank you. And I wish we could go frolic around Melbourne after this, but maybe another time, another time. Okay, well frolic around Australia somewhere. I want to start by just getting right into I think is a pretty straightforward question. But also complex. dissociation is getting more, a little more popular, people are becoming more aware of it. Not so much to the degree that I would like just yet. But you have been so steeped in researching and defining dissociation. So I want to hear from you. How would you define dissociation to someone who's just sort of getting onto this page of, okay, this is something that has to do with trauma and how does it work? What is it?
Speaker 2 2:59
I think that a lot of people misunderstand dissociation and don't recognize that it is quite common. So when people come to understand it, they won't unsee it, it's something that they will continually see whether it be working with clients or people around them in its mild forms, particularly in day to day life. So I would view dissociation as a process of where people disconnect from or compartmentalize stressful or traumatic experiences, the other why's that overwhelm the capacity to cope. So this is a disconnection from different aspects. So you can be having thoughts that you cannot cope with. So the thoughts go away, or there's the feelings it's too overwhelming. So there's like numbness and no sense of feeling a deadness that it could be actions that you have made that you're completely disconnected from, like disembodied sense of did I do that it's sort of seem to be happening beyond my control, or automatically, it could be bodily sensations. So the sensations in the body and including that actual physical numbness or deadness or parts of the somatic experience, for instance, not being able to hear or so we sort of get into things that I guess in modern language would be like to do with sort of conversion disorder. This also this parts when it becomes chronic about who am I because the level of fragmentation of all of these experiences and that can also become memory as well. So people that have a lot of trauma, then their memories of that trauma can become split off so they are able to cope or memories that remind them of that trauma and they To not be the trauma itself. So this is splitting off, it's because it's like this really heavy load to carry. So it's to be able to go forward, I have to sort of jettison some aspect of my experience just to be able to be persevering through it. So it's a coping mechanism that enables people to endure experiences that are intolerable. And just like anxiety or depression, you can feel sad, and you can feel anxious, it doesn't mean you have a disorder. And I think that that's what's missing in the way that people view dissociation as they view the parts of their experience, where they are having to compartmentalize to that level, just to cope with what's happening for them.
Lisa Danylchuk 5:45
Yeah, that I have so many thoughts as you're talking, one of the first ones is I have a friend who talks about putting things in the filing cabinet. And I wouldn't describe her as dissociative or she doesn't have di D. But she's like, I put it in the filing cabinet. And that's how I cope. And I'm like, Well, do you ever open the filing cabinet? Do you take inventory? Is it how much? Do you know what's in there? Is it organized? Is it disorganized? You know, of course, I have all these questions. But I think that's a really common way. And I'm thinking right now, perhaps because where we are in the world, and I know so many people have endured loss in recent years of grief and how people have different relationships with like, you know, I've had an experience of grief where I just dove right into it. I did not compartmentalize it, I did not. Right, you know, rather than going, I'm gonna put this in the drawer and in the filing cabinet and keep keep on my career or go to work. I started working in this field, which kind of already in it. But I started working with young kids who are going through a lot of trauma, right, and who had had experienced different things that were sort of similar. A lot of what you're saying I think is more relatable. Someone might be like, Okay, maybe in a yoga practice, I've been like, oh, I don't feel this part of my body so much. And then through practice, I start to embody it more. But just to label it like a nerd. You're talking about somatic form dissociation, right? You're talking about, yes, we have amnesia, and they're completely forgetting. And you're even touching upon dissociative identity, which is, you know, when we have that fragmentation, not just have a memory that happened to me, but if different me's right. Yeah, absolutely. And I know you teach, like a whole day intros to this topic. And we could spend, you know, easy four hours, which we will, but you're really encapsulating a lot of these different presentations of dissociation. And I think it is important that we know and notice, this isn't some extreme thing. Yes, that's maybe where we have more of the research. But it's really a way to cope, that probably the filing cabinet example people can relate to more Oh, I had to go to work, I went and cried in the bathroom or in the shower in the car, and then I packed it up and put it aside, you know, putting emotions aside in that way.
Speaker 2 8:07
And the thing is, they know that it's there. So but again, do they attend to it and and I guess that's a level of dissociation. If you imagined that and couldn't remember what was in your filing cabinet, you know, the filing system was deliberately lost, then you'd probably be looking at what's severe dissociation,
Lisa Danylchuk 8:24
open the filing cabinet, and it's a black hole, away forever.
Speaker 2 8:29
And I do think grief can be a very dissociative process for people, particularly when people have to attend to things that don't allow them to grieve and that could be attending to the funeral and all of the arrangements around that, where the person has no space to it's just very administrative, very thought and they feeling self is completely shut down. But then when they have space, they can integrate those feelings and it's no longer dissociative. So again, it's what is the capacity person's capacity to cope? What is their space to grieve? But when they don't have that ability, you know, then I think that's where you see the dissociation, which may be very temporary, and then the integration of information and feeling.
Lisa Danylchuk 9:18
What stands out to me too, is that a lot of people don't know how they'll cope with something like you know, something like a sudden loss until it's happening. And so we learn right, where our edges are and what our ways are, what our go to protective or coping methods are kind of in the in the mix a lot of the time right in the thick of it. Absolutely. So I'm curious what drew you to research dissociation
Speaker 2 9:49
this different aspects to answer this question, but I guess the first time it even became a thing in my life was up front and center in my early 20s. I had Two friends that very similar times that we're both dealing with these early memories that were emerging of sort of abuse within the family. And, I mean, I was just so surprised that the information that was coming back, I completely believed both of my friends, one was actively dealing with it. One was not. And they had sisters, and one of the sisters had the same that was sort of verifying this one not. And so it was all extremely fraught, and emotional, and you know, these things, I guess, don't resolve quickly and change a person's sense of identity and have to reconstruct, you know, can I trust my family? Who can I trust, it's so massive this, like in sort of, I guess, a personal Apocalypse for them, and just watching them navigate that in different ways. And one that sort of nearly sort of wanted to keep the good memories of it present, and one that sort of kind of couldn't go there because of the fear. And that then they ended up a lot more in in addiction. And my friend, she was such an incredible character, but she died of a drug overdose. And it wasn't clear what that was intentional or not. And just that loss, that sort of nothing, nothing was held to account, no one could really understand and help her in the way that she needed to be helped. And at that time, you know, there was a lot of disbelief around, you know, the idea of false memories, but sort of seeing that up close and personal and really believing what had happened and seeing the personal damage that that created. So I think that sowed a seed in me about, you know, this is something that needs a lot of attention. And it's something that once I'd seen it, then there were other personal experiences of that, as well. But one thing that I've done a lot with my life, my work sense is working with these themes of like identity and belonging, and trauma. My first job out of university was working with adoptees, and then I worked for over a decade in sort of the migration and refugee space. So that's sort of tied in into this when I was working with the adoptees wanting to learn more about their early life. And I think that a lot of adoptees, they have these early traumas. And they find it really difficult to sort of, I guess, integrate that because of this disloyalty they can feel to their adoptive parents. So they may be really loving families. I mean, not always, but families that really wanted a child. And so they find it very difficult to then sort of talk about or integrate these aspects of being adopted. And also, a lot of people are adopted, maybe even if it's the most straightforward adoption, it might have been at least a couple of weeks. And then you know, that child was in utero with, you know, a birth mother, that may have been really stressed about what her future meant giving up a baby about why she was in that situation, so that all these stress hormones, and then these traumas that were experienced, often, like these babies never been held by their mother when they were born, like, you know, for the older adoptees that were taken away, straight away. And yeah. And the mum was, you know, just in a state of grief, and then the child was with the foster mother. So we know that these really, really early experiences like in infancy, we can predict who's going to be dissociated, it's actually really strong, you can predict if someone has an insecure attachment. And that's not to say, that adoptees if they go into this loving family, and there's that repair, and that happens. I think it is really interesting that you know, I was looking at this recently because that's something that's, I guess, was quite a profound experience. And I hadn't sort of seen that link and there is now research, it's some something done by Lee McLamb their team and in that they're finding that adopt is it's just like clinically dissociative, on average, well, which is something that perhaps we wouldn't expect, but that disconnection about having multiple selves, you know, there's Who am I really, you know, when you biologically, you come from a lineage that you may know very little about, but that's sort of who you are. And then you know, am I the Family and that difference, I think it makes people vulnerable from the beginning, just the experience and identity. And in a similar way, you know, I saw the same thing with refugees and migrants who again, have this, it's trauma, often. And even if people, sort of voluntary migrants, there's still that sort of, you know, who am I, you know, why? Why are people motivated to leave. So it's much less than, obviously, people that have experienced what it takes to be leaving on humanitarian grounds. And often, you know, these years of living in such unsafe situations without often the family support that would bind people together. And then, you know, moving to a host culture, and often, particularly for young people, they're trying to straddle, you know, who am I, you know, for the host house, my sense of belonging, so to belong to their family of origin and their culture, they have to be one way and then to belong to the host society, this is different perspectives and expectations, so having to be another way and this might not be able to be reconciled. And we do see, again, these are all clinical levels of dissociation, particularly in refugees, which is no doubt hugely related to their trauma. But I think it's also
Lisa Danylchuk 16:20
the foundation, it strikes me as you're talking just part of, I think the challenge people find with this, just the whole field of complex trauma and dissociation is there's so much stacked on top of each other, right? There's, there's attachment, there's safety, within country, there's moving, there's all these other things that in terms of our development setup, who we are, how we feel ourselves to be how we process our emotions, there's culture, there's changing cultures, and so it can get, I think even the field can start to feel overwhelming. And, and it's definitely complex, because we're talking about human beings. And I have yet to meet someone who's really, really actually a simple person, like we're all actually pretty complex. So I'm curious for you, as a researcher, when we're trying to organize and we're trying to measure and we're trying to, you know, substantiate or explore a hypothesis. When you came to the field, what were some of the holes that you saw? Like, what were what were maybe some missing pieces that we've that we've started to find, because I think some of the research you've done and been involved with, has really grounded certain pieces that we can stand on, and we can go, Okay, this helps us understand this phenomenon better. And you're talking about some of them already. But I know that that you've done this really rigorous investigation, and I want people to get that it's not just speculation of, oh, it seems like having a loss or being adopted or changing country has this impact, like you've measured this and worked with a lot of people.
Speaker 2 18:01
So we're going to be I think, digging deep through this interview about all those different aspects. Going back to your first question, what was lacking? And what were the holes? And I guess that was one thing that was really obvious to me was that because at the time there was a skepticism, and, you know, we know that the last in the mall studies was completely misrepresented, and to some certain extent been to credit the discredited this idea that people could have false memories of something bad that had happened to them. So I think because of that dissociative amnesia was really off topic, like it was off limits, you know, people didn't want to be touching that therapists nearly didn't want to be touching that so much, except for in particular places such as the ISS, TD that international society study of trauma and dissociation. When people talked about dissociation, they were really focusing, and the research particularly was focusing on dissociative identity disorder, I can absolutely see why that was the case. And also because people were really interested about how can somebody have these different cells that act in different ways. So there was a high need within this group who often was struggling to function and highly suicidal and, you know, these real difficulties that they needed support, but also, I think it was that it was an interesting area to look into. But when we'll sort of talk about prevalence later, but such Identity Disorder is not the most common as you wouldn't expect it to be. The experiences that create it are so intense and terrifying and lifelong, that they don't happen to that many people. And therefore, there's not that much dissociative identity disorder. There's it's more common that there's less common types of trauma. If him who thinks that the trauma that is not intense, there's more of it. So we have more dissociation that is from that not as intense trauma. So I guess I wanted to really understand these other diagnoses that people weren't really looking at. And other specified dissociative disorder, what a catchy name, you know, and before that was called dissociative disorder not otherwise specified type one. You know, they're really doing well
Lisa Danylchuk 20:31
here. Great marketing.
Speaker 2 20:34
I know, in the World Health Organization classification system, it's called partial dissociative identity disorder. And that sort of gets more to it. But then people don't even understand, you know, what is that? Because how can that be partial? When I'm teaching, I sort of give the example of, you know, imagine somebody driving a car. And dissociative identity disorder is where the person is driving, and they're aware of other people in the car that might be you know, sort of voices and chatter and sort of disharmony or different things happening. But when there is a switch, there is a switch of driver. So the executive control that the person that is driving that person, that vehicle is a different part of the self. So with partial Identity Disorder, people have this experience of having other parts, but those parts aren't strong enough to take individual control to jump up and take the wheel. Yeah, so what that sort of looks like because they're driving in their car, they're hearing all of this sort of noise. And it feels like someone's trying to take the wheel, but they they can't, and someone's like, yelling out that they're yelling out the window, and the like, oh, my gosh, what? Why am I so angry? Where are these words coming from? And there's this sense of them not contained. There's this intrusions that are really difficult for them to stay present. And they may nearly lose it, but they're still in it. So that might be this jostling this feeling of jostling in the driver's seat from these other parts, but they're definitely still in the driver's seat, even if they are having a moment where they feel like they've lost a little bit of control. But that's yeah, the executive control remains. But there's basically no research about that specifically. And if it's done, it's put together with dissociative identity disorder. So I also want, why does some people get dissociative amnesia, and you know why for some people do they just experienced a personalization, which is, you know, feeling disconnected from the self like a stranger to themself or derealization, like feeling the world and the people in it is unreal. So why do people have these different experiences? So that was something that I was really curious about? So what's protective? What's causal? Yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 23:00
And you've asked some of those questions in your research, like, what's protective? What's causal? How common is this? Are there any other important research themes or questions of yours that I'm missing here?
Speaker 2 23:14
I think that that's sort of an overarching part of my research. I know that you're interested in, well, what are the important questions that I've asked in my research? And sometimes, we're talking about this earlier, do we go into the past and talk about the fantasy model? And it's a difficult one, because in some ways, it feels like neuroscience has put that to bed, but it keeps popping up, you know, whether it be you know, Harvey Weinstein trial and things that, you know, people sort of taught can have false memories. So, I think a key question for me was, how can the fan theme model be true? And I'll say why I asked that question. So when I started researching dissociation, which is just over a decade ago, it was accepted, without question by many educators and clinicians, like the idea that people could come to falsely believe that there had been dissociative symptoms. So their symptoms were actually false. The person just believed that they had them when they didn't. And they got them by the socio cultural influences, such as it was then very much talking about movies and books, as well as the idea that a therapist could say to them, oh, I think you're abused and that person would sort of spontaneously come up with these memories of abuse.
Lisa Danylchuk 24:41
On now that media would be social media, right? You're talking about movies, books, even but now, the other layer I
Speaker 2 24:50
know. Yeah. Which is fascinating because I think that that plays into something that when we fast forward to the modern day, which I will come back to, but So looking at 10 years ago, the socio cultural influences that I was fighting for I can't I found it really difficult to comprehend that that could actually lead to what people were saying was dissociation. So someone with dissociative identity disorder that they had just created that made no sense to me. I wasn't convinced people with that suggestible. But what seemed to me to be impossible was that a person that had grown up in a family where their parent was non abusive, a good enough parent, that they could suddenly believe that their parent or someone else, very significant and close to them was a perpetrator of sexual and physical violence towards them. That made no sense because it goes against every survival instinct that we have, yes, as a human, you know, abandonment, and social isolation is deaf to us. There's no game, the person's isolated from support, that will be really struggling to function. And we see that when people are very dissociative and dealing with traumatic memories, it's incredibly difficult to be functioning, being really depressed, barely coping. So why why would that actually happen? So, because dissociation on the other hand is opposite. So it's enabling a person to survive in the most challenging situations, that's life sustaining. So at least why somebody's in the midst of that trauma. It makes sense dissociation makes sense, like could not get to this idea that we could be programmed as humans to do something that was so unhelpful for us.
Lisa Danylchuk 26:46
So back in the day, there were people who said trauma survivors are just making up the bad things that are happening to them. You've done some really important research that disproves this fantasy model of dissociation. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2 27:00
The fantasy model, with the idea that the symptoms of dissociation and the trauma that gave rise to it or imagined not real, was actually difficult to disprove, because the way that the people that the proponents of this way of thinking we call them fantasy model theorists describe the causes of these apparently false beliefs, they give these explanations, and it's sort of become over time even more and more to have unpick, because they also say that people that are traumatized can have vulnerable to this and that are lonely. And the explanations, symptoms people with dissociation have, like it's ours due to poor sleep. And, you know, they're not very good at monitoring reality. But if you're dissociating monitoring reality is going to be more challenging for you than for other people. And if you're not, if you're having issues, sort of dissociating, you might be suggestible to plausible information, because how do you stay? Like if you've got dissociative identity disorder, and something has happened? And someone says, oh, yeah, so are you down and you know, that ice cream shop and, you know, we had this chat and you're wearing and they're like, oh, that sounds plausible. So potentially, you know, it would make sense that it might make them more suggestible to plausible information. But this is being used to prove that it was all fantasy, and it was really, really tricky to actually work that out.
Lisa Danylchuk 28:33
It's like taking all of the symptoms and turning them around. I mean, it makes me think of deny attack, reverse victim and offender right Darboe from Jennifer frightened Season Two and and you know, we speak about that with Jennifer Gomez as well. It's, it's this, like, stir up a cloud of dust. That's so confusing that any bystander watching has no idea what's going on or who started what or who's, is there a victim here? Who is it right? And then it just people sort of leave it alone, because it's too complex, but the way that you're drawing it out, is really saying folks who were dismissing dissociative amnesia, dismissing these memories, were using the symptoms themselves to sort of discredit the experience of the person who had been traumatized. Am I following that? Right?
Speaker 2 29:28
Yeah, it's really like I guess having two football teams and you've just recruited all the players from the team. It was it was really like I got this is our star player. Oh, we're gonna put that up another star player poach that, too. That's that it felt a little bit like and these things developed over time, like the idea of bringing trauma into it. Right.
Lisa Danylchuk 29:51
I think one of the hard things about this too is the way that dissociation is portrayed in the media in terms of like the I can think of movies about dissociation or dizziness their identity disorder and they're so sensationalized. As I've been a part of international organizations supporting people who work with the ID treating people who have it, whenever a movie like that comes out, there's such a backlash, right? It like, triggers people. It's upsetting. It's because of the way things are sensationalized.
Speaker 2 30:19
I know it's not true. All the worse, isn't it again, just like it does when you're saying damn, I thought that was really interesting. And I haven't actually sounds really obvious I hadn't joined those, those dots, but it really sounds that like the deny pa i It's not real, sort of attack your your bat.
Lisa Danylchuk 30:40
You have to be wary. So one of the other things that come up is people think, well, dissociation is not that common, right? Like, oh, it doesn't happen that often. It only happens in these extreme cases where people get di D, and I've known a lot of therapists and even talk to people who are going through psychological training to become psychologists who don't get exposed to this don't get training in it, they think it's, well, it's so rare. I've worked for 10 years in this setting, and I've never seen it. And I can tell you, I've worked under supervisors who say that, and I've had clients and been supervised by them and been so frustrated, because it almost feels like, again, that denial, or that lack of ability to see that dissociation essentially is happening for the provider as well, like it's too complex, they don't want to see it. So is this a cultural thing? Is this a Western thing? What's the research and what what questions have you asked around that?
Speaker 2 31:36
It's a very interesting one around prevalence. And I guess when I first started out, I was like, really interested in, you know, what are the causes, but then I had this kind of shocking experience when I started my research, and, you know, the questionnaires were coming in, and I was sort of checking, and I was like, how I had this finding, and this was in an Australian university setting. So you know, mainly mainly students, a few staff, and it came back saying that people on average, were dissociating 13% of the time. Wow. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is so high. Maybe I've got a decimal point wrong.
Lisa Danylchuk 32:19
Yeah. Like, how did they? How did you define that?
Speaker 2 32:22
I just couldn't believe it. And I was like, ah, that must be plausible. It's 1.3. But no. And then I was at a conference talking to some experts. And then they were saying the opposite. Say, Oh, I've heard that studies of college students, they're hugely dissociative as dissociative of people with dissociative identity disorder. And as it turns out, you know, that was completely wrong as well, like these people. There were studies that were finding that but that actually, because there's different scales, they meant to average them, they were adding them together. And quite a few things, a few studies that did that. So it gave this false impression of this really high rates. But I ended up going What is it? Because what's the baseline because to me, I would have thought that 10% is really high. You know, there's Australian students, you know, what's going on in Australia that people are dissociating that way. So that's the meta analysis I did of 98 studies. So it's like getting 98 studies from around the world and follow all that data together. So you've got I think it was something like 28,000 participants, which is a lot to do data analysis with, you get these quite compelling findings. And on the whole, it was a students around the world dissociating 17% of the time. And Australia was actually on the low side. So I wanted to write high, like, I remember, high rates of dissociation were found, like I remember just writing that because it just didn't seem possible to me. And I was also able to confirm that it was a global experience, because that's another argument, oh, it's just North America, or it's just the Western world. But it wasn't more prevalent in North America, it wasn't more prevalent in Western countries, which surprised people that are skeptical, but because of where I was coming from, and looking at it through a trauma lens, I thought, well, it must be higher in those countries where there's a lot of interpersonal trauma. And it was those thoughts about, you know, migrants and refugees. And, you know, obviously, there's high rates there and thinking of communities that have a lot more violence, we see higher rates of dissociation. So it just makes sense to me that will that will play out on the country level as well. And countries that were really safe, like Switzerland had very, very low rates, countries that are unsafe, such as Peru had higher levels of dissociation. So you know, when I looked at it in international context, it looks like trauma. And you know, this is Some countries, you'll find dissociation wherever you go, if you use the tools people go, we don't have any dissociation. It's just because they haven't looked and they haven't used the right tools. If they go in and have good instruments to check in or doing the right thing, they'll find it. And I think that that's an important lesson that it's not, it's not the American fad.
Lisa Danylchuk 35:23
You're making me think about the mid the mid 60s. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think one of the things that comes up with therapists and I know a fair amount of people listening are wellness providers, yoga, teachers, therapists, you know, health care workers. And like you said, once you see dissociation, it's really hard to not see it anymore, right? You kind of it's like, yeah, like any of those things, where you learn something, and then you start hearing and seeing it more often. So what are some of the good measures? And how did you come to the mid 60?
Speaker 2 35:59
Well, it was using the dissociative experiences scale in research, that I found that we would expect there to be a strong correlation between trauma and dissociation, but it was coming out is really quite weak. And that was really spurring the fantasy model, because they could say, well, fantasy is equally influential, which makes a lot of sense, because people that have a lot of trauma, that's a way of escaping into a fantasy world, itself. That's not a surprising finding. It doesn't discount Association in any way. But what I realized when I actually looked through these instruments really carefully, is that the dissociative experience of scale, it was designed to pick up to such identity disorder, but that's what it was designed to do, was designed to pick up dissociation on the whole, like all the dissociative disorders. So it actually looks at normal dissociation experiences of absorption people in the general population have and then it was looking at just the very, very top, so it's missing this complete middle section. And in statistical analysis, obviously, it just doesn't come out very strong, because these core components of dissociation were missed. For example, there was nothing to do with dissociative amnesia in there at all. It has an amnesia subscale which people become very confused by the car. But when substitute scales, it's called amnesia. But that's the amnesia that's experienced when someone has dissociative identity disorder. And it's switching states. I just was really curious, you know, what instruments can actually pick up all the dissociation and you have these fantastic clinical interviews. So Malin Steinberg structured clinical interview for dissociation, and Colin Ross's dissociative disorders, interview schedule, but I guess a lot of people don't have the time to do that, then there's a diagnostic instrument that's 280. A team question. It's a lot. I mean, it's, it's considered a diagnostic instrument. And, you know, that's really useful. And I will speak highly of the bid, but it's not always feasible. And for people that have a lot of dissociation, that's a lot of questions to answer. And you also then can't use if you're doing research, people that weren't, it's a 200 Dating question said, You can't ask any more questions after that. And you also have a diagnosis them to deal with, which could be an ethical issue as well in like food when you're doing research. So I was like, Well, what, what can I do about that? And so it was I did speak to Paul Dell, about, you know, making this a shorter instrument as a screening tool. And so that's how I got into the mid 60. And it was looking at sort of the 12 factors and just picking the most predictive questions that each of those factors, so it sort of kept the same factor structure.
Lisa Danylchuk 38:58
One thing I want to make sure to do is, so it's multi dimensional inventory of dissociation. Correct? Yeah. And number 60, because it has 60 questions yet? Do you want to just go quickly through the 12 sort of elements that it's measuring there? Because I think that sort of circling back to our first question, which is, what is dissociation? What does it look like? Look like? How do we get this like for this very intangible thing that can start to feel elusive? Like how do we ground it and how do we name it? And how do we name the different aspects of it because again, it can get and folks who work clinically with us know, like, it can just get really muggy, it can get really unclear and you're trying to. So I think it's super helpful for us to have tools whether it's for ourselves understanding just you know, everyday more common dissociation but also for folks who are working with other people to start to see, and this even makes me think of in season one I interviewed Heather Hall, Dr. Heather Hall. When she was talking about working in hospitals, and seeing people who had been brought in, for, you know, wandering around and talking to someone, and she would start engaging with them, and, and their trauma narrative would be essentially what they were. They were processing. And people thought they were schizophrenic or thought they had these other things. And then with her perspective of understanding trauma and dissociation, she could really clearly, and I think more helpfully diagnose and say, This is what's going on here. So again, it's like when you understand dissociation, and when you have these, you know, and I think these 12 are helpful anchors, when you have these anchors, you start to go, oh, this makes sense. And this person's behaviors makes sense. And my behavior makes sense. And, and it's all in light of, you know, how these presentations or symptoms are, are really helping us in some way. So what are the the 12 anchors,
Speaker 2 40:55
so the first thing we talked about, which is the amnesia that we see with people with dissociative identity disorder, it'd be nice if we could call it social identity response. And that's like finding yourself somewhere with no memory of how you got there are three scales that look at experiences that are common in people with dissociative identity disorder, and this partial dissociative identity disorder. And the first is just having some sense of awareness of having self states. So the idea that our you can say I've got people inside that have their own names. In example of that. Then we have interesting overlay here between things like the inner critic, but we call this person persecutory. intrusions, for example. So this voice in your head, and it's calling you, you're worthless, you know, good or failure. So that's one of the scales, as well as angry intrusions. So that could be this experience of having a part of yourself that comes out and says, sometimes quite awful things are very angry things that you would never do or say, then looks at experiences of derealization and depersonalization. So we talked about that before the idea of feeling like a stranger to yourself. And for D realization, it's the world around you feeling unreal, although derealization and depersonalization can also be a result of drug use. So that sudden onset can sometimes be you know, things like MDMA can sometimes trigger that. So it might not be a trauma history at all, if that was the only symptom person had. And then there's symptoms related to dissociative amnesia. And that's to do with autobiographical memories. So not being able to remember much of your past or also experience it in the present where you forgetting what other people tell you. But of course, it could be to this subscales like some organic causes. So you want to recall that things such traumatic brain injury, that there's not a reason another reason that people are just having memory problems, absolutely. At scale is related to dissociative amnesia as well as complex dissociation. It also has PTSD subscale, which just focuses on flashbacks. And that can also help is this working out, particularly if the rest of the dissociation isn't particularly strong, it might be that the person has post traumatic stress disorder with a dissociative subtype, which is more than derealization depersonalization aspect of it. And then there's the body symptoms where we talked about that disconnection from the body that people can have. So that might be a person not being able to see for a while as if they're blind. And there's no medical explanation. And then there's a couple of general symptoms that aren't dissociated per se, but can co occur. And one is self confusion, people that are dissociative, extremely puzzled by themselves, and this can be a real concern for them. And other relates to experiences of trance sort of that half conscious state between being awake and being asleep. Now.
Lisa Danylchuk 44:14
So I think I mean, I know this is a lot, right, because we're talking about complex trauma, and we're talking about different ways people can respond to pretty horrific experiences. But to me in that I hear these anchors of like, oh, okay, it's more about not feeling my body, okay, it's more about this angry part coming out, like those feel more like examples that people can relate to. And as a therapist, I can't tell you the amount of times I've had people just like, I don't really remember that much about my childhood. And it's such a place of mystery to be right because why is that or what might have happened and you know, I've worked with people for years and just not known certain things about their history because they didn't Know them, and then sort of they start to unveil themselves through the work. And then it becomes known to the client, it becomes known to me it becomes part of the work. And and so that's a really interesting process too. And I think, especially when you're differentiating, post traumatic stress from a single incident, or someone's having memories or flashbacks that are very intense and visceral, like it's almost the opposite. Right? It's the opposite response, rather immediate. It's, I think it's similar, right? Because we're pushing it aside, and then it's sort of popping out. But sometimes we push it aside so far, that it's just unknown. And I think that's just this nebulous territory, where it's, it's challenging to work with, but so important, right, like people say, feel it to heal it, it's like, well, if you don't know it, how are you going to feel it?
Speaker 2 45:51
Yeah. And I think it's also in mapping where that unknown information is because it sort of gives you a sense of where the trauma might be, because some people might be able to describe some of the early life quite well, or different aspects of their life. And then there's these these gaps that, yeah, just unknowns. And it's really like circling. So
Lisa Danylchuk 46:10
What experiences have you found in your research are highly predictive of dissociation? Like what might be if you heard someone say, Oh, this thing happened to me. And then I don't remember anything for five years, or, you know, if you knew coming in, you have a file and it says, This person experienced these five things, what would what would tell you that they were more likely to be experiencing dissociation.
Speaker 2 46:35
Like, it's if I go back to my sort of empirical research on this. And I talk about sort of three parts that I've found about attachment trauma, and parent child dynamics. So we know from not not just my research, there's, like really good longitudinal research that I haven't been able to do that predicts a disorganized attachment style in C. So when a child wants to go to the caregiver, but the caregiver is the source of their fear, and they end up in this sort of very stilted can't respond, because there's no response. And dissociation in a way resolves that because it enables them to attach to a caregiver that they're afraid of, or is frightening them in some way. So in my research, I found that this similar style, so people that are dissociative had this fearful attachment style they wanted to attach. And that was the overriding part that they were afraid to, but that does need to attach was actually the stronger part. And so for people that were in the clinical group, they had this, but they also had the secondary part of profound mistrust, which is you can not trust anyone. So that was even harder, but they still on the whole would attach. So, and I think that plays out if I think about women, that same with dissociative identity response, we're most have been in relationships, and there'll be a couple that it was, you know, that maybe had a little, a few relationships that were very short, but or were catastrophic or violent, and then have completely just not been in any more relationships, and incredibly fearful about them. So yeah, just whether a person can trust and they're able to trust another person is a huge indicator. So, you know, we hear often about trauma, and so people are trauma causes trauma causes it. And you know, what kind of trauma and I think that when we're looking at more severe dissociation, those really enduring patterns of dissociation, I think it is things that are occurring early so chronically early. So we know that most people with clinical levels of dissociation we're reporting 1000s of abusive experiences on average, not just a few, it's not just our this thing happened once or twice, it was like chronic, and most of them were around between four to six when the standard so it can be physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse. And I think it's these neuro, the neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity of young minds and being inescapable. You know, they're not able at like, and at what point does the mind just go? I just have to shut down and kind of go along with this because I can't escape. I mean, you gotta really be trying to escape on that 840/3 time and you're seven years old.
Lisa Danylchuk 49:40
Right? And when you're thinking about a child between four and six, like where do they have to go in terms of other ways to cope or other resources? Right, like that's a really pivotal developmental age and there's the neuroplasticity. There's also comes to my mind, just like access to outside supports and if you're having 1000 have experiences of abuse. And you know, we can talk about family dynamics in a moment too. And if it's entrenched in in the family, like where, like you said abandonment and isolation are such threats for our physiological well being and our survival, that this is the other way, right? This is the way to make it okay to stay in those abusive environments and make it through.
Speaker 2 50:23
Yeah. And the child can't fight, they can't flee. They're completely dependent. So the experiences that I found were sexual abuse was incredibly common. And I think it's probably, it may be 100%, because there's always people that don't quite remember. I mean, it was so high, there was only a couple of people that did not report being sexually abused life threatening experiences, such as choking and smothering physical injuries, like like serious physical injuries, these were talking about the importance of attachment and being deprived of your basic needs. So that serious neglect. Yeah. So for people that were sexually abused, it was a 16 fold risk of a dissociative disorder in females and that involved in males. But I found this like, incredibly high risk factor. And that was, it's just the mind boggles with 106 fold risk, which is 10,600% more than someone without that experience. And that was someone that's explained that being sexually abused, but had also been shocked, or smothered. So there's this like oxygen deprivation, yes, as well. And that is just such an intense risk factor. And something that's actually come to worry me in recent years, because that's become like, particularly with younger people, a common sexual practice as well, the idea of choking a partner during sex is, yeah, I think like Debbie have a next work. It's like one in three young women, the last time they had sex, they were choked. And it's very common in trans and non binary community as well. It was just
Lisa Danylchuk 52:10
watching something on TV recently, like a kind of sitcom level, and there was a reference to that in there, too. And I just thought of you and your research. And I thought, Ah,
Speaker 2 52:21
yeah, I mean, it's terrifying, because it consent often isn't there either. And the body doesn't know even it's so often that it wasn't consent. So you are looking at these terrifying experiences and the brain still being neuroplastic, that these young, you know, these young people? So I think that it is troubling, and I won't be surprised if there's an increase in dissociation. Because of this.
Lisa Danylchuk 52:43
How do you tend to gather this information? Is it usually in a written form or an interview? Or does it vary from study to study?
Speaker 2 52:50
This was all through questionnaires. But I've also done in person interviews with women with dissociative identity disorder. So assigned female, but most of them it also transferrin.
Lisa Danylchuk 53:05
I mean, I just think, inherently, these are hard things to talk about. So as a researcher, you have to be very sensitive also be sort of savvy. And also. I mean, I would assume, and, you know, I've done a lot of research, but I'm not a researcher. I don't wear that hat anymore. I would assume there's so much non reporting happening and that there's no real way to measure that.
Speaker 2 53:28
Absolutely. And I found it really interesting that I introduced an onshore category. Also, dissociation aspect, because you know, it's hilarious. We're looking at dissociation, and every single question is yes, no, to this experience, and I'm sure it was, particularly for sexual abuse. This is predictive as Yes, predicted dissociation, same level, and sometimes more often than certain sexual acts. So that was really interesting in itself. And one of those sources, I think, for choking was really high, being unsure about being choked and sexually abused, that was still really high for dissociation.
Lisa Danylchuk 54:04
And all my understandings of biology and how we respond to you know, really life or death circumstances biologically that fits right, that that we go to a place if we're, if our body is really afraid it, it's going to go, it'll shut down or Feign Death or collapse. It'll use those tools at that point. Yeah, yeah. So those are the very specific isolated experiences or, you know, maybe not isolated if we're talking about 1000s of occurrences, but what are some of the dynamics that you see that lead to disease?
Speaker 2 54:38
So I guess I wanted to really understand this. So I sort of dug deeper because it's not looked at as, as closely so the things that I found that were related to this sort of lack of parental care, and when it came to dissociative identity response is actually this incredible coldness of the At the mothers that came through, and that wasn't the respondents saying that they were actually incredibly loyal, actually surprisingly loyal, but it's something that I really noticed that was coming across. But where the child isn't able to seek comfort, so it's an adult, they're not able to seek comfort when they're hurt or distressed, they weren't able to develop self esteem or self worth, or a sense of self. So they have this chronic feeling of being unsafe, which can be unpredictable parental behavior, these feelings of powerlessness and not having any control over their life, feeling things really unfair. And there's these secrets to sort of pervasive sense of secrecy, not to say all parents are open and transparent. And often for females, particularly being this, this isolation from peers, and sort of sort of being a bit more isolated from the outside world. And I think this is in an attempt to what we see as like a hiding the dysfunction that exists behind the closed doors of this apparently normal family, the family may look sort of like upstanding members of community and present themselves that way. No, then that's the things going on behind the closed door. And that makes it very difficult for a person to reconcile. Right? What is happening is like, is this right, and I think, you know, that very incongruence sort of leads to dissociation as well, particularly, you know, when you see things like gaslighting is, in addition to that, oh, that didn't happen. And it's like, oh, my family looks this all over my family looks this way. And the saying it didn't happen. And it's these things, I think, all contribute to it. That idea of feeling seen by their caregivers, as the person that they are or feeling valued, having opportunities for, like decision making, and critical thinking, like a lot of that gets shut down. So this is like, learned helplessness and dependency. Yeah. Caregivers who aren't attentive, nurturing, dependable, kind, supportive, encouraging, committed to the child's development, they're more likely to not treat their child or create the conditions in which others end up nightmare treating the child, and also less likely to protect the child from abuse. And so you know, I think that understanding these dynamics, and you know, you and I have talked about this before, really useful in thinking about what might be helpful in a range of settings and avoiding things that are potentially triggering, like in yoga, that might be people saying, Oh, you will now be feeling relaxed, you know, telling them because this idea of this is telling them how to think can be very triggering, and it's reinforcing that they don't have their own agency, or being too directive. Yes, you know, telling them to move into happy baby pose. And it's a really vulnerable pose. So it's more as you do. And you know, you teach people about you know, if this feels right for you, I'm not sure the words exactly you may like to but these invitation, all those words, yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 58:26
When you're ready, if you're ready, if you like, when you when you choose?
Speaker 2 58:31
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think you know, Yoga people can be very regimented about these things. And it's like, oh, this is this healing modality. And if it's not done, right, that's, that's the reason you shouldn't do such work. Is that Yes, it has this wonderful healing potential,
Lisa Danylchuk 58:47
or so many of the things you just pointed out in family dynamics, which, you know, as we grow older and grow into adults, we often end up in dynamics that feel familiar, right? Like, I mean, the Apple didn't fall far from the tree for me, both of my parents are geologists and therapists, and, but we ended up in dynamics that feel familiar. And so right, I'm thinking about this applies to we're talking about children and being surrounded by their families and the dynamics and the families will also what are the dynamics in adult relationships? What are the work dynamics and you pointed out some of the problematic or challenging or unhealthy ones, and I'm just thinking of the opposite of that, like safety, comfort, empowerment, transparency, connection, agency, and like these are principles of trauma informed care, right consent, right free freedom of thought and being recognized and acknowledged for who you are and all these things that are so valuable that most human beings when they hear them go, you know, if you're like, do you want to go into room a or room B? Some people will go into the room that has the law US has the harmful dynamics because they're familiar, right? But most of us at some level, and even from really young ages, even some of the young kids I've worked with, there's this sense of like, this isn't right, this is unjust, this doesn't feel good. There's like some sort of you no wisdom or knowledge or biological knowing that's like, No, I want the safety, I want the comfort, I want the support, I want the clarity of transparency, I want to be able to choose which toys do I get to play with, it's not that it's Tuesday. So I always have to play with the purple toys, you know, even a two year old, frustrated with something like that. And so, you know, we start getting into family dynamics, we're also getting into how we understand the world. And we're getting into structure and expectation and all these things. But I like to land again to find some of these anchors, these principles of trauma informed care, where we might not be able to ensure absolute safety, but we can create an environment that feels safer, we can invite comfort, we can remind folks of their ability to make a choice, you can do this side or that side. Or you can opt in or out of this next thing, something as simple as that. And then choosing to do it from your own choice, rather than just because other people are doing it, or just because someone told me to, can be so powerful. So I feel like there's a lot of healing, even, you know, folks who are listening who are wellness providers are nurses, I mean, I've definitely had my own journey, like finding a provider that just naturally does these things, or maybe has been trained in them, because so many people just, you know, are are in a system where telling people what to do is how that's just how it's done. Absolutely. And so even something like that, it's like, well, how does that relate to dissociation? Well, this is how, right this is how,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
yeah, there are starting experiences.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:02:00
Exactly. And when you talk about what is more predictive of it, what systems tend to lead to it, versus what are the systems that tend to lead to healing. And I think like any system can invest in being trauma informed, right, can invest in understanding trauma and dissociation, and even looking if we're only looking at these really extreme outcomes, learning from those, and then applying those to everyone, right, because the needs that come out on the far end of the spectrum, the need that comes out when we get scurvy is we need a certain amount of vitamin C. So getting vitamin C is great, you know, the right window, the right amount, let's figure that out. And let's make sure folks get, you know, cares what you're talking about and support and a reasonable expectation of being treated. I always go back to Donna Hicks's word with dignity.
Speaker 2 1:02:49
Yeah, and that's, that can be really challenging for people that haven't had that and don't feel they deserve it, it can be also very triggering thing for them to learn to accept that that is what they deserve. Yeah. It's not as if people wouldn't necessarily come to that with open arms, because it can feel very confronting, and then also realizing what's lost. Yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:03:11
So if someone's listening, and they're starting to go, oh, that sounds like my family. That sounds like my experiences as an adult. That sounds like my experiences as a kid are the resonating. How could someone who's just learning about this start to recognize, you know, again, sort of landing like, oh, maybe this is dissociation that showing up in me or in showing up? Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:03:32
I mean, I think that the International Society of trauma and associations, public resources pages, a very good way to start and just looking at some of the fact sheets. So you know, really going to that sort of evidence base that sort of written in an understandable way is a good point. But particularly for therapists that are listening or concerned that maybe one of their clients is dissociative after listening to this, then I think the mute 60 is a good start. And if they also we can put the links in the show notes, but I do have a webinar that's freely available on on that and how to use the mid 60. And how you interpret it, as well as a bit more on dissociation as well. So that's an Nova psych understanding and identifying dissociation and social disorders, and said that's just freely available on Vimeo. We can put
Lisa Danylchuk 1:04:28
all of those links in the in the show notes and on the website to to the ISS, TD public resources page to the videos and resources you have recorded so generously. Thank you so much for that. I've already passed some of those on to colleagues, by the way, the more recent one you did, yeah. On the mid 60s, and thank you for sharing those. And I want to move in this direction of like, well, you know, we've we've covered a lot I know it's just a little tiny taste. And you and I live in this world where there's, you know, infinite complexity and so many discussions have so maybe we'll have you back on the show, but I'm curious if there are any, like narratives from the research that you feel it's really important to voice you mentioned, you know, sometimes it's a survey where it's yes, no unsure. Other times, it's a conversation with someone. And obviously, those are protected for confidentiality. But is there any emerging, whether it's from one person or from a collective of people, narrative that shows up for you that you feel it's important to share with listeners,
Speaker 2 1:05:24
one of the big ones that is important is, you know, where I hear it, again, it's going back to something that's really old and just won't go away. And that's dissociation is rare, like that sort of skepticism voice. And just for people that are struggling with that, I think that that it can be really difficult for them to go well, is this actually dissociation. And so I think the fact that it's as common as depression, that when people think of dissociation there imagining dissociative identity disorder, so it can feel a bit removed from their experiences, like that's, that's not like me, but yet everyone uses dissociation to cope with this overwhelming situations, and you'll hear these conversations. After the breakup or confer any emotional, oh, I was completely dead and so awful, I just locked that memory away in a filing. Right. With all that's happened, I barely recognize myself. It exists in, in many different forms and many different intensities. And just because it's not dissociative identity disorder, it doesn't mean that that isn't impeding the person moving forward. Because that sort of into a level of integration and understanding what is happening for the person is really important in healing. So whether they clinically have a dissociative disorder, and a lot of people do, it's, you know, 10% of the population will at some point in their life, it's like, no, that's a lot. So if people are sort of feeling that some of this resonates for psychology, it's not it's not that extreme that I think that it's important to get that support and reach out. And know that healing is it's possible, and particularly where it starts early. And again, that neuroplasticity, I just wish that there was this identification of dissociation early on, because it's really tough for those people that have dissociative identity disorder, their lives are so fraught and harrowing, then they won't know because their defense structure of dissociation is so tight to get them through that experience, that that's not going to fall apart and be unpicked. And so often people say experiences don't come to light until early adulthood. But that's when it'd be great if the work can be done, because it just takes a lot longer. I think for people that are older, and I'm sure that you've said what you found to when those those pathways are more
Lisa Danylchuk 1:08:01
ingrained? Yeah, generally speaking, I think the earlier the support, the better the earlier the intervention even Yeah. Which leads me to what what are some of the supports you've seen be helpful. And I don't know if this has come out in the research or if this is just in sort of, you know, being in the world of dissociation. I'm obviously an advocate of getting supportive, a mental health professional who has training in this who, you know, you feel somewhat seen or understood by in, in your experience speaking to, you know, people who are experiencing this, are there any other things that stand out to you as valuable supports,
Speaker 2 1:08:37
because it's so diverse the way that dissociation presents and some of these foundational things that we've talked about whether they happen, I think that obviously, having a mental health professional working with alongside you is really important to try to traverse this difficult territory. So your trauma informed therapy that's really a dissociation formed as well, because I think trauma informed therapy gets a bit of a tag, but actually, you know, do they really understand dissociation, and, you know, really working for that place of helping the first person experience stability and this false sense of state safety, so that they can then slowly injure address the impact of the trauma whether that's not necessarily going back into traumatic memories, but it may be as far as like that whole of life experience. So looking for social connection, making sure where they live is in a safe environment. When they're ready and feeling safe, being able to connect again with their body, being able to connect with the natural world, finding activities that are meaningful to them, and hopefully activities that bring a sense of calm and joy and happiness. It's like a very, I guess a holistic approach that's needed rather than, you know, saying specific therapy type because they could go for a particular therapy type, and that therapist may not work for them. And that therapy might, they've might find that a bit triggering, where it might work really well for some people. And that's really hard when people haven't, again, had their own agency and are used to dynamics that don't work for them. So that when things aren't right, I think, you know, being able to feel safe enough to say, like, this is really difficult for me this part and seeing if there can be a repair, because I mean, those things, I think, can be really frightening themselves, but also going this isn't working for me and trying something else. Because of those dynamics that are so ingrained, often intensive people pleasing, but also high levels of control power differentials. So a person feeling that's okay, if that's not not working for me.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:10:57
Yeah, and I guess one of the things I'm curious about is, you know, this, this is the platform I'm most familiar with, where people will openly talk about their experience of di D. And so, you know, like I said, there's movies about folks with di D, that don't always resonate, at least with the populations I've been exposed to with people who are living with the ID. So I'm just thinking about as social media consumers, whether or not people know they have a history, or are just sort of coming on and learning about it, I think it is hard to differentiate, you know, what the source is, and what's coming, where it's coming from.
Speaker 2 1:11:35
We did touch on this earlier, where it was interesting in the very beginning I talked about, I mean, I completely still stand by what I said about the fantasy model. And I don't think that people are going to create these histories of abuse. But whether that it can influence dissociation, I mean, we've seen social, socio cultural influences on all sorts of mental health issues throughout history. It's not the first time I think I was reading somewhere about dissociative fugue becoming a big thing in the turn of last century. Like that your pink states, these things are all possible. And I think that there'll be some really interesting research. But I guess what does worry me is that at some point, we might have the backlash where people are saying, Ah, you know, this isn't like discrediting of dissociation more generally, from, I guess, this concern about the level of site self diagnosis, particularly in young people that's going on. And, you know, I know a lot of therapists are concerned about this. And they've never had this before, because generally speaking, people with severe dissociation are more likely to be hiding the conditions from themselves in the outside world. So it is a bit of a different phenomenon. And often the first time people think that they're seeing dissociation, even though they may have seen it in the office for years and not noticed it, but where people are coming in and saying, you know, I've got dissociative identity disorder, or I've got other specified dissociative disorder. And this is what's happening. And being able to describe their inner worlds and systems in a way that would take probably years in therapy for somebody that's highly dissociative. So this something, there seems to be another process involved. And there's also an overlap as well, I think that that's definitely trauma, it could be that that is actually a dissociative identity disorder, it could be dissociation, it could be neither of those things, a lot going on that we need to understand, to be able to give around the support and help and the sense of belonging that they need.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:13:41
And as you're talking, I think back to you know, tools like the mid or, you know, go as impersonal as they are, there's again, some like grounding and some some amount of amalgamated research and reflection and testing of instruments that like we can go back to as the mental health field, at least to sort of as a touch point. But
Speaker 2 1:14:04
I apparently, there are sort of videos on how to complete these things.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:14:10
Oh, I mean, I think any Well, it depends on like your level of self awareness. And I guess in terms of dissociation too, right. But I think any, if someone's aware, they're getting a personality test or a psychological test, you know, people can give the answers that are are true, or people can give the answers that are, yeah, what, what they want to be true. And so that's a whole other layer that we won't get.
Speaker 2 1:14:35
to know. And it's so confusing, because there's also things like within your diversity, like masking is that, you know, to what extent is that experienced as dissociative and so it may just be the way that experiences are interpreted. So it's not trying to give false information. It's like reporting and understanding of an experience, which may not be how the Uh, people that have designed these instruments see it or won't or maybe that will change, there'll be interest, it's an interesting space to watch.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:15:12
We'll put links to your direct research, also in the show notes. So folks can go directly to that if they want to learn more, look at the studies you've done, reference some of the statistics. What's next for you and your research or your work?
Speaker 2 1:15:29
I've got a few projects on the boil from data collected. And so I am hopefully going to be able to look at neurodiversity. So looking at ADHD and autism, which will be really, really interesting. You Yeah, thank you. So it was a bit more in depression and anxiety. And so the intersection between different diagnoses? Yes, I can't
Lisa Danylchuk 1:15:53
wait for that. And so excited. Here's the tell me when and where you're presenting that research and send it to me when it's published. And I will share because it's one of the most common questions I get. If I'm offering a training and trauma informed yoga, someone always asked about ADHD, someone always asked about autism. And so I think it's really important to get more research on those areas.
Speaker 2 1:16:14
Yeah, cuz that's just not much with the dissociation intersection at all. It's just a lot of questions, I think. Not so many answers. Yeah. So hopefully, that will start to get paint a bit of a picture. Yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:16:27
And, you know, when we're talking about the things we've talked about during this conversation, you know, they can get pretty heavy, we're talking about child abuse, we're talking about sexual abuse, we're talking about really difficult physical, emotional, and interpersonal experiences. So amidst all of that, with this being such a focus of your work, what brings you hope, what do you stay connected to on a day to day basis that helps them uplift your perspective.
Speaker 2 1:16:54
I think the increasing belief in you know, childhood abuse and trauma existing as well as dissociation, you know, I just think for so long, there's just been so many sort of different movements in recent years that have really highlighted and the Internet can be, I guess, has also drawn light to things that may have been hidden by like, you know, think about Mike Michael soldiers work and things like that on organized sort of he's like this evidence, like evidence is undisputable that these things happen. It's not just people's accounts. So I think people still find that hard to accept. But it's, it's changing. And I think that that makes healing much more possible when people don't even have to do the very basics of like, this happened to me. And that's believed. I mean, that's just, that's just a whole nother layer of trauma in people not being believed, or not being able to get the support, because people are like, I don't believe in dissociative identity disorder, which was pretty common. So I think that it's very sad that it's so basic, but that gives me hope.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:18:09
That it's foundational, right? It's a really important piece.
Speaker 2 1:18:13
Yeah. And it's a societal shift that can help lead to healing, and hopefully, also, to stop some of these things and lead to prevention. People aren't having to go through this.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:18:27
So how can people connect with you and follow your work? Or is the best place to find you
Speaker 2 1:18:34
can follow me on ResearchGate, where I post my articles on LinkedIn, I also have a Facebook page called the dissociation researcher that I've started.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:18:44
Yes. And I reshare those as often as I see them. Every time I see something from you, I'm like, yes. Just want more people to have access to this type of stuff. I feel like it gets so siloed in a lovely community of amazing human beings, but I want it to be out there more freely. So thank you so much for doing this research and for dedicating so much of your time and energy and life to it. Right, because it's so valuable and so helpful for folks who have been through some really gnarly things, and really rough experiences in life. And you know, you and I know those experiences are way more common than most of us tend to think when we're just walking down the street and seeing people walk by us. Yeah, absolutely. So thanks for coming on the show. We've got like 12 other episodes planted things that we can talk about. We could do one episode on each section of the mid Oh, how boring
Unknown Speaker 1:19:40
would make it interesting.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:19:43
For me, I think it'd be really interesting. Thank you, Dr. Mary. And Kate, you're wonderful and fabulous and I'm just glad to exist in this world.
Speaker 2 1:19:53
Sentiment is completely right back. Hey, Lisa. It's been a pleasure and an Allah
Lisa Danylchuk 1:20:02
Thank you look forward to hopefully having you back. Thanks so much for listening. My hope is that you walk away from these episodes feeling supported, and like you have a place to come to find the hope and inspiration you need to take your next small step forward. For more information and resources, please visit my website how we can heal.com There you'll find tons of helpful resources and the full transcript of each show. You can also click the podcast menu to submit requests for upcoming topics and guests. I look forward to hearing your ideas
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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