DISSOCIATIVE PHENOMENA IN THE EVERYDAY LIVES OF …

DISSOCIATIVE PHENOMENA IN THE EVERYDAY LIVESOF trauma SURVIVORSJ anina Fisher, Practice, Watertown, and Supervisor, The trauma Center, Boston, MassachusettsPaper presented at the Boston University Medical School Psychological TraumaConference, May 2001 Interest in dissociation, as a mental ability and as a set of symptoms secondary totrauma, has re-vitalized in the past ten years following a one hundred year hiatus betweenthe work of Janet and the work of the pioneers in the field of trauma in the 1980s and 90s(van der Kolk, 1997; Putnam, 1999; Chu, 1998). Although we have a betterunderstanding of dissociation now than we did ten years ago, it is still a very controversialsubject in the field of mental health because it is so routinely equated with DissociativeIdentity Disorder. As a result, even experienced clinicians miss the frequent more subtlepresentations that appear in our offices on a daily basis. If we look instead to understanddissociation as we would any other mental state phenomenon, we will begin to see thatall human beings dissociate, and much of our dissociativeness is , the term dissociation refers to a disruption of the normal integrationof experience (Chu, 1998).

DISSOCIATIVE PHENOMENA IN THE EVERYDAY LIVES OF TRAUMA SURVIVORS Janina Fisher, Ph.D. Private Practice, Watertown, Mass. Instructor and Supervisor, The …

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  Phenomena, Live, Trauma, Everyday, Dissociative, Survivors, Dissociative phenomena in the everyday, Dissociative phenomena in the everyday lives of trauma survivors

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