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Presenter: Richard Kluft, PhD

Hypnosis in the Treatment of Pathological Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders

With the exception of some instances of depersonalization and depersonalization disorder, the vast majority of dissociative symptomatology and dissociative disorders are posttraumatic hypnotic psychopathologies, requiring high hypnotizability as their substrate. Shame and damaged self structures are inevitable concomitants. Psychotherapies facilitated by hypnosis far outperform treatments that do not involve the use of hypnosis (Brand et al., 2016). This workshop will review the psychopathology of normal dissociation (absorption) gone awry, and dissociative identity disorder (DID), which encompasses the full spectrum of dissociative symptomatology. Thereafter it will review their treatment, with an emphasis on practical applications of hypnotically-enhanced interventions. Participants will learn over twenty specific interventions useful in the treatment of DID, with an emphasis on pacing, containment, abreaction, integration. and safe closure. The fractionated abreaction technique of trauma processing and the three truncations method of optimizing the ending of sessions will receive exceptionally detailed attention.