Dear Colleagues and fellow members of ESTD.
I’m just back from two weeks holiday in Devon in south of England. The chance to relax in the sun and watch the Olympics on TV, made me realise on my return home how strenuous and demanding this work is. Not only do we have to face the expected challenges from working within the field of complex trauma but we still have to deal with the scepticism and negative responses from a significant number of psychiatric professionals regarding the very existence of dissociation. We need to make sure we care for ourselves. Furthermore our clients’ need to see us doing this. We may, otherwise, end up mirroring our clients’ often overly high expectations of themselves in an attempt to be ‘perfect’.
It also reminded me that sessions need to have times when they are lighter in content and if anything more playful: a concept alien too many of our clients.
I want to extend my special thanks to both Dolores Mosquera and Anabel Gonzalez (ESTD contact persons for Spain) for their offer of a one day ESTD/ESTSS event the day before the main EMDR Conference in Madrid in June. The whole event was extremely well organised. Our 2 workshops were very well attended and we had excellent feedback. The first was the showing of the training DVD ‘A logical way of being’ which was jointly presented by First Person Plural and ESTD with subtitles in Spanish. This resulted in over 50 copies being sold. The addition of subtitles in several languages is now available online on the ESTD website.
It is refreshing to see so many excellent books emerging in our field. Both ‘The Treatment of Dissociative Disorders’ by Elizabeth Howell and ‘ Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder’ by Jo Ringrose are recent additions. Both are easy to read. The former is a relational approach to the subject, the latter especially helpful for clinicians new to the field. In addition there is Valerie Sinason’s book reviewed later in this newsletter.
Finally it is the time of the year for nominations to become a member of the board. Again details are given in this newsletter. Do please consider putting your name forward or suggesting a colleague. We do need the Society to continue its growth from strength to strength.
My hope is that by the time you read this newsletter you will all have had an equally restful summer break.
Remy Aquarone
President, ESTD
From ESTD Newsletter Volume 2, Number 4, September 2012
http://estd.org/content/newsletter-2012-vol-2-number-4-september