Understanding Dissociation and the Spectrum of Dissociative Effects, page 4

by Trish Fotheringham

Learn About Dissociation

Looking For Support?

Healthy Perspectives and Approaches

Now that understanding of Dissociation and the Dissociative Spectrum has shown you the need for new methods and approaches in your personal life and the society you live in, I will offer some suggestions and ideas.

First though, I vehemently advise you to find your own truth as you explore these and other options. Do not allow yourself to be “brain-washed” into believing and accepting misdiagnosis or mistreatment in desperation or by way of outdated societal and psychiatric labels. Don’t even believe what I say unless it resonates as true for you!

Dissociative Symptoms Checklists

To start, you might want to complete a checklist or two to get some clues as to the forms and degrees of dissociation at play in your life.

Checklists to find through Google or another search engine include:

  • The Child Dissociative Checklist (CDC) is a parent/observer checklist for children age 5-12 years.
  • The Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES) is a self-checklist for ages 11-18 years.
  • The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is a self-checklist for ages 18 years and above.

My Beliefs about what works and what doesn’t in creating change

It is my fervent belief that the traditional methods and approaches in current use in general do not solve problems or provide solutions to issues stemming from dissociative effects.

Our psychiatric efforts have devolved to numbing, shutting down and controlling symptoms through drugs rather than treating root causes and producing true healing.

Likewise, our criminal justice systems treat the crime through punishment and fear, but do not address the underlying causes and beliefs, or the lack of communication and interaction skills for developing healthier means of meeting legitimate needs.

Compounding the effects individually and societally, most of our social, governmental, business and other communal systems have foundations been built upon outdated and ineffective psychiatric and criminal justice systems that are rooted in the effects of dissociation. In my opinion, this whole interconnected dissociative mess is the “the root of all evil”, since it perpetuates the problems, and prevents the positive change and healing that we all desire and need.

I believe our only hope for progress is to step away from what evidently does not work, and start employing new approaches to create the changes we seek.

My Suggestions for Alternative Techniques and Treatments

In keeping with my belief that we need new perspectives and approaches to create the healing and evolutionary changes we seek, here are my best suggestions.

I must caution you though. It is sadly still the norm that many practitioners do not yet see and interpret problems and issues through the lens of  dissociation and the dissociative spectrum. So be sure to check out what each individual understands and applies in their practice!

I wholeheartedly recommend the following as highly effective tools (you can find information on all of them through Google or another search engine, as well as through the links below):

Warning: The methods below can be quite damaging if the practitioner is not skilled at working from a trauma-informed perspective that enables them to see and interpret problems and issues through the lens of dissociation and the dissociative spectrum. It’s crucial to find out what each practitioner understands and applies in their practice before you work with them!

Back to top

Previous page | Next page