Trauma & Dissociation:

Assessment & Treatment of Dissociative Disorders

Friday, June 12th - VIRTUAL ONLINE - live interactive virtual course

8-3 PST / 9-4 MST / 10-5 CST / 11-6 EST

6 CE’s available for psychologists in Washington.

6 CE's available for counselors and marriage and family therapists in:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Social Workers:

Trauma & Dissociation: Assessment & Treatment of Dissociative Disorders, course number XXXX, is [NOT YET] approved by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program to be offered by Emma Sunshaw as an individual course. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE course approval period XXX. SOCIAL WORK CEs PENDING.

For CE credit, your zoom sign-in must match your registration name and email. Course completion requirements must include attending the entire course and completing evaluation. Certificates will be issued by email within the week following the training. Please contact us if you have not received your certificate by Friday, June 30th, 2026.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Registration Deadline: Friday, June 5th, 2026.
Cancellations up through Friday, June 5th, 2026 may be credited for a different training.

ADA Accommodations: Zoom captions will be enabled as needed.
Contact us HERE for other ADA accommodation requests by Friday, June 5th, 2026.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This training provides an in-depth, clinically grounded framework for assessing and treating dissociative disorders (Complex Trauma, DP/DR, OSDD, DID) using a relational, psychodynamic, and trauma-informed lens. Participants will learn how dissociation emerges developmentally; how to conduct comprehensive and culturally responsive assessments; how to identify dissociative self-states; how to navigate safety, stabilization, attachment disruptions, and transference-countertransference; and how to work effectively with complex trauma presentations including somatic dysregulation and chronic shame. The course integrates research, clinical examples, and ethical considerations for working with severely traumatized clients in outpatient and community settings, as well as inpatient referral options.

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES:

  • dentify at least three developmental and relational pathways that contribute to chronic dissociation.

  • Conduct a structured dissociation-informed assessment using validated tools and clinical interviewing strategies.

  • Differentiate between DID, OSDD-1, PTSD, psychosis, personality disorders, and culturally normative trance states.

  • Apply key components of a relational treatment frame, including pacing, attunement, and negotiation of boundaries.

  • Implement stabilization and safety planning tailored to dissociative clients.

  • Demonstrate interventions for working with parts/self-states and resolving traumatic memory.

  • Describe ethical and risk-management considerations unique to dissociative disorders.

AGENDA TIMELINE:

Welcome, Orientation & Learning Goals (15 min)

  • Course overview

  • Review of learning objectives

  • Brief pre-assessment: What clinicians hope to learn

Foundations of Dissociation: Development, Attachment, Neurobiology (45 min)

  • Defining dissociation as a relational adaptation

  • Micro-dissociation vs. structural dissociation

  • The relational birth of “self-states”

  • Attachment disorganization and early caregiving misattunement

  • Neurobiological underpinnings (DMN, limbic dysregulation, right-hemisphere processing)

  • Cultural and systemic factors shaping dissociative strategies

Assessment I: Clinical Interviewing & Differential Diagnosis (50 min)

  • How dissociation presents in “camouflaged” ways

  • Creating a safe assessment environment

  • Screening tools (DES-II, MID, SDQ-20, CDC)

  • Asking parts-oriented questions without leading

  • Distinguishing DID/OSDD-1 from:

    • PTSD

    • Psychosis

    • Personality disorders (esp. BPD)

    • Autism

    • Seizure disorders

    • Cultural or spiritual trance states

  • Evaluating functional impairment

Assessment II: Mapping the System & Case Formulation (50 min)

  • Identifying parts, roles, functions, and protective systems

  • Assessing internal communication and cooperation

  • Identifying trauma-related phobias (per the structural dissociation model)

  • Working hypotheses and case conceptualization

  • Assessing risk: suicidality, self-harm, amnesia, time loss, coercive control, external threats

  • Documentation strategies

Treatment Frame I: The Relational Container (40 min)

  • Establishing a psychodynamic + relational stance

  • Pacing, titration, and non-pathologizing language

  • Attunement, rupture-repair cycles, and working with shame

  • Boundaries, consistency, and predictable structure

  • Transference, countertransference, and projective processes in dissociation

  • Cultural humility + intersectional considerations

Treatment Frame II: Stabilization & Safety (40 min)

  • Regulation and grounding strategies tailored to dissociative systems

  • Internal communication skills

  • Internal meetings, scheduling, and collaborative governance

  • Somatic stabilization and pacing traumatic material

  • Working with flashbacks, intrusions, and time loss

  • Safety planning across parts

  • Ethical management of crises or high internal conflict

Treatment Frame III: Parts Work & Trauma Processing (45 min)

  • Principles of working with self-states

  • Understanding protector dynamics

  • Gentle processing: pendulation, dual awareness, memory titration

  • Relational witnessing and non-coercive integration

  • Working with dissociative “contracts,” internal rules, and stuck trauma time

  • Creative modalities (imaginal, narrative, somatic, art-based)

Complex Clinical Situations (45 min)

  • When the system doesn’t want therapy

  • High-conflict systems or hostile protectors

  • Coercive control and external threats

  • Attachment to perpetrators

  • Medical and psychiatric comorbidity

  • Dissociation in marginalized communities

  • Boundaries and therapist safety

Closing, Integration, Evaluation (30 min)

  • Key takeaways

  • Post-assessment of learning

  • Resources for further training

  • CE evaluation instructions


SPEAKER BIO:

Emma Sunshaw, Ph.D., has a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development, a Master's Degree in Professional Counseling, and her Doctorate is in Marriage and Family Therapy. As a licensed clinical counselor, she has been in private practice since 2003 and licensed and working in the field since 1999, with additional experience in ER triage, inpatient psychiatric, residential treatment, school-based, and outpatient settings.

She is a current clinical honorarium of the Harvard University Women Kennedy School of Government Women and Public Policy Program. 

She is on faculty with the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses about complex trauma and dissociative disorders.

She offers frequent trainings for therapists and psychoeducational classes for peer support groups.

She has served as the international clinical coordinator for humanitarian aid organizations offering counseling and trauma resiliency training to government leaders, humanitarian aid workers, and first responders in war zones and natural disaster sites. Dr. Sunshaw has published articles, written books, and she lectures internationally about trauma and resiliency.