Posts

Making Sense of Dissociation Raising Awareness & Promoting Healing

A rare opportunity to work with a trainer with both personal & professional experience, awareness and skills in understanding & working with dissociation.

Learning Outcomes:
• Greater awareness of the continuum of dissociative experiences.
• Enhanced confidence, responsiveness and awareness for supporting survivors of trauma, abuse and adversity.
• Awareness of effective short and long-term strategies for reducing distress and gaining control.
• Increased knowledge of working therapeutically with dissociative experiences and use of the DES-II.
• Greater understanding of the clinical relevance of dissociation.
• Acquired skills and knowledge to work collaboratively with survivors of trauma, adversity and abuse to help them reclaim ownership of their experiences and work towards recovery.

Suitable for anyone wishing to understand more about healing from trauma and working with dissociation, including mental health/social service professionals, psychotherapists and counsellors, voluntary sector workers, survivors and their friends, families and allies.

For further information and how to book a place, please visit:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-sense-of-dissociation-raising-awareness-promoting-healing-tickets-42463102282

Beck Road Alliance

Beck Road Alliance – Share Your Testimony

Beck Road AllianceThe Beck Road Alliance (BRA) exists to support survivors of organised childhood sexual abuse on Beck Road, Hackney, and ALL survivors EVERYWHERE, to share their testimonies of surviving childhood sexual abuse.

BRA believes that by sharing our experiences, we’re showing the world that the reality of childhood sexual abuse is a global epidemic, which profoundly effects girls and boys.

BRA believes that breaking the silence about childhood sexual abuse is crucial in terms of healing from the impact of, and drawing attention to, the widespread prevalence of abuse. Our silence will not protect us. Only the truth will set us free.

BRA believes that it is the mark of a responsible society (and responsive services), to honour those experiences, support them and learn from them at all levels.  Only then can we stop the cycle of abuse and prevent future generations from being left with the lifelong legacy of surviving childhood sexual exploitation.

Share Your Testimony with BRA

This is your chance to share your testimony, in your own words, on your own terms.

See the Beck Road Alliance Page to contribute your testimony

Sociologist Inger Agger and psychiatrist Soren Buus Jenwen describe the act of testimony as a ritual with dual purposes. When a survivor testifies, they both purge themselves of an internal ‘evil’, and bears witness to a social or political injustice:

‘The word ‘testimony has in itself a double connation of both something objective, judicial, public, or political, and of something subjective, spiritual, cathartic, or private…Thus the use of the word ‘testimony’…implies that the subjective, private pain is to be seen in an objective, political context’.

(Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma, Kali Tal. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996).

Feel free to share as much or as little as you like, and to use your real name or to use a pseudonym – it’s entirely up to you.

If you prefer to e-mail us at beckrdalliance@gmail.com, we can upload your story for you instead. Please follow us on Twitter (where you can also submit entries by tweet) at @BeckRdAlliance

BRA – Beck Road Alliance

Beck Road AllianceThe Beck Road Alliance (BRA) exists to support survivors of organised childhood sexual abuse on Beck Road, Hackney, and ALL survivors EVERYWHERE, to share their testimonies of surviving childhood sexual abuse.

BRA believes that by sharing our experiences, we’re showing the world that the reality of childhood sexual abuse is a global epidemic, which profoundly effects girls and boys.

BRA believes that breaking the silence about childhood sexual abuse is crucial in terms of healing from the impact of, and drawing attention to, the widespread prevalence of abuse. Our silence will not protect us. Only the truth will set us free.

BRA believes that it is the mark of a responsible society (and responsive services), to honour those experiences, support them and learn from them at all levels.  Only then can we stop the cycle of abuse and prevent future generations from being left with the lifelong legacy of surviving childhood sexual exploitation.

Share Your Testimony with BRA

This is your chance to share your testimony, in your own words, on your own terms.

Sociologist Inger Agger and psychiatrist Soren Buus Jenwen describe the act of testimony as a ritual with dual purposes. When a survivor testifies, they both purge themselves of an internal ‘evil’, and bears witness to a social or political injustice:

‘The word ‘testimony has in itself a double connation of both something objective, judicial, public, or political, and of something subjective, spiritual, cathartic, or private…Thus the use of the word ‘testimony’…implies that the subjective, private pain is to be seen in an objective, political context’.

(Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma, Kali Tal. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996).

Feel free to share as much or as little as you like, and to use your real name or to use a pseudonym – it’s entirely up to you.

If you prefer to e-mail us at beckrdalliance@gmail.com, we can upload your story for you instead. Please follow us on Twitter (where you can also submit entries by tweet) at @BeckRdAlliance

    Film image

    Soundcloud Clips from ‘Why Did I Go Mad?’

    ‘I went from a whole, healthy little girl into a shattered mind’ ~ Abuse as a catalyst to psychosis

    Dr Eleanor Longdon ~ Voices can be recruited as part of the healing journey.

    Talking with your foe ~ Rai and Dirk explore the power of dialogue with the adversarial voice

    Psychiatrist Sir Robin Murray in conversation with Dr David Strange.

    Dr David Strange in conversation with Professor Richard Bentall for BBC Horizon

    Professor Swaran Singh on the links between social marginalisation and psychosis.

    Jacqui Dillon and Rachel Waddingham interviewed by Rachel Burden for BBC Five Live

    Trauma & Dissociation Journal

    Hearing voices, dissociation, and the self: A functional-analytic perspective

    Abstract

    In the current article, we review existing models of the etiology of voice hearing. We summarize the argument and evidence that voice hearing is primarily a dissociative process involving critical aspects of self. We propose a complementary perspective on these phenomena that is based on a modern behavioral account of complex behavior known as relational frame theory. This type of approach to voice hearing concerns itself with the functions served for the individual by this voice hearing; the necessary history, such as trauma, that establishes these functions; and the relevant dissociative processes involving self and others. In short, we propose a trauma–dissociation developmental trajectory in which trauma impacts negatively on the development of self through the process of dissociation. Using the relational frame theory concept of relations of perspective taking, our dissociation model purports that trauma gives rise to more coordination than distinction relations between self and others, thus weakening an individual’s sense of a distinct self. Voice hearing experiences, therefore, reflect an individual’s perceptions of self and others and may indicate impairments in the natural psychological boundaries between these critical related concepts. One clinical implication suggested by this model is that therapeutic intervention should understand the behaviors associated with a sense of self that is fragile and threatened by others. Relations with self and others should be a key focus of therapy as well as interventions designed to enhance a coherent distinct sense of self.

    Authors: C. McEnteggart , Y.Barnes-Holmes, J. Dillon, J. Egger & J.Oliver

    Published in: Journal of Trauma and Dissociation

    Publisher: Taylor and Francis

    Date: 8th January 2016

    Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15299732.2016.1241851?journalCode=wjtd20

    The Psychological is Political

    Phoenix

    Making Sense of Madness: An emancipatory approach

    7 July 2017, 10 am – 4.30pm, registration from 9.30am

    Hackney House, 25-27 Curtain Road, Hackney, London, EC2A 3LT

    https://madness-london.eventbrite.co.uk

    This unique, one day event, featuring Jacqui Dillon and Rai Waddingham (recently featured on BBC Horizon: Why Did I Go Mad?), explores experiences often dismissed as symptoms of serious mental illness: voices, visions, paranoia, unusual beliefs and altered states, and reframes them as understandable human responses to adversity.

    Drawing from personal and professional experiences of madness, healing and recovery, combined with emerging innovative research findings, Jacqui and Rai present an emancipatory approach to understanding and working with distressing experiences that prioritises respect, personal meaning, self-determination and liberation.

    Download: Making Sense of Madness Flyer

    It includes:

    • Understanding ‘mad’ experiences
    • Exploring factors that can contribute to and shape distress
    • Alternatives to diagnosis – moving beyond the illness model
    • Respectful ways of helping people in distress
    • Strategies to survive and thrive

    This day is suitable for:

    • Anyone interested in understanding more about madness, creativity and the complex spectrum of human experience
    • Those involved in supporting another human beinga – whether this is as a friend, ally, family member, colleague, mental health professional, teacher, therapist, social worker, voluntary sector worker, manager or spiritual advisor
    • All those with lived experience of madness and distress

    Fees:

    • Unwaged: £10
    • Voluntary Sector & Self Funding: £90
    • Statutory & Commercial: £125

    Please get in touch if you’re in a difficult financial position – we may be able to help.

    Register:

    https://madness-london.eventbrite.co.uk

    Jacqui Dillon

    Jacqui on BBC Horizon’s ‘Why Did I Go Mad?’

    HorizonFor hundreds of years, psychiatry has treated voices and hallucinations as an enemy – regarding them as ‘insanity’ or ‘madness’ and seeing them as something to be quashed and even frightened of. But today, new scientific and psychological insights into how the brain works are leading to a radical rethink on what such experiences are – and how they should be treated.

    Horizon follows three people living with voices, hallucinations and paranoia, to explore what causes this kind of phenomena. Providing a rare first-hand insight into these experiences, they reveal just what it is like to live with them day to day. They examine the impact of social, biological and environmental influences on conditions traditionally associated with insanity, such as schizophrenia and psychosis, and within the film they look at how new ways of understanding the brain are leading to a dramatic change in treatments and approaches, and examine whether targeting the root causes of psychosis can lead to recovery. Above all, they try to uncover why it happened to them – and whether it could happen to you.

    Jacqui Dillon

    See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mgxf

    Pages

    Making Sense of Dissociation Raising Awareness & Promoting Healing

    A rare opportunity to work with a trainer with both personal & professional experience, awareness and skills in understanding & working with dissociation.

    Learning Outcomes:
    • Greater awareness of the continuum of dissociative experiences.
    • Enhanced confidence, responsiveness and awareness for supporting survivors of trauma, abuse and adversity.
    • Awareness of effective short and long-term strategies for reducing distress and gaining control.
    • Increased knowledge of working therapeutically with dissociative experiences and use of the DES-II.
    • Greater understanding of the clinical relevance of dissociation.
    • Acquired skills and knowledge to work collaboratively with survivors of trauma, adversity and abuse to help them reclaim ownership of their experiences and work towards recovery.

    Suitable for anyone wishing to understand more about healing from trauma and working with dissociation, including mental health/social service professionals, psychotherapists and counsellors, voluntary sector workers, survivors and their friends, families and allies.

    For further information and how to book a place, please visit:
    https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-sense-of-dissociation-raising-awareness-promoting-healing-tickets-42463102282

    Beck Road Alliance

    Beck Road Alliance – Share Your Testimony

    Beck Road AllianceThe Beck Road Alliance (BRA) exists to support survivors of organised childhood sexual abuse on Beck Road, Hackney, and ALL survivors EVERYWHERE, to share their testimonies of surviving childhood sexual abuse.

    BRA believes that by sharing our experiences, we’re showing the world that the reality of childhood sexual abuse is a global epidemic, which profoundly effects girls and boys.

    BRA believes that breaking the silence about childhood sexual abuse is crucial in terms of healing from the impact of, and drawing attention to, the widespread prevalence of abuse. Our silence will not protect us. Only the truth will set us free.

    BRA believes that it is the mark of a responsible society (and responsive services), to honour those experiences, support them and learn from them at all levels.  Only then can we stop the cycle of abuse and prevent future generations from being left with the lifelong legacy of surviving childhood sexual exploitation.

    Share Your Testimony with BRA

    This is your chance to share your testimony, in your own words, on your own terms.

    See the Beck Road Alliance Page to contribute your testimony

    Sociologist Inger Agger and psychiatrist Soren Buus Jenwen describe the act of testimony as a ritual with dual purposes. When a survivor testifies, they both purge themselves of an internal ‘evil’, and bears witness to a social or political injustice:

    ‘The word ‘testimony has in itself a double connation of both something objective, judicial, public, or political, and of something subjective, spiritual, cathartic, or private…Thus the use of the word ‘testimony’…implies that the subjective, private pain is to be seen in an objective, political context’.

    (Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma, Kali Tal. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996).

    Feel free to share as much or as little as you like, and to use your real name or to use a pseudonym – it’s entirely up to you.

    If you prefer to e-mail us at beckrdalliance@gmail.com, we can upload your story for you instead. Please follow us on Twitter (where you can also submit entries by tweet) at @BeckRdAlliance

    BRA – Beck Road Alliance

    Beck Road AllianceThe Beck Road Alliance (BRA) exists to support survivors of organised childhood sexual abuse on Beck Road, Hackney, and ALL survivors EVERYWHERE, to share their testimonies of surviving childhood sexual abuse.

    BRA believes that by sharing our experiences, we’re showing the world that the reality of childhood sexual abuse is a global epidemic, which profoundly effects girls and boys.

    BRA believes that breaking the silence about childhood sexual abuse is crucial in terms of healing from the impact of, and drawing attention to, the widespread prevalence of abuse. Our silence will not protect us. Only the truth will set us free.

    BRA believes that it is the mark of a responsible society (and responsive services), to honour those experiences, support them and learn from them at all levels.  Only then can we stop the cycle of abuse and prevent future generations from being left with the lifelong legacy of surviving childhood sexual exploitation.

    Share Your Testimony with BRA

    This is your chance to share your testimony, in your own words, on your own terms.

    Sociologist Inger Agger and psychiatrist Soren Buus Jenwen describe the act of testimony as a ritual with dual purposes. When a survivor testifies, they both purge themselves of an internal ‘evil’, and bears witness to a social or political injustice:

    ‘The word ‘testimony has in itself a double connation of both something objective, judicial, public, or political, and of something subjective, spiritual, cathartic, or private…Thus the use of the word ‘testimony’…implies that the subjective, private pain is to be seen in an objective, political context’.

    (Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma, Kali Tal. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996).

    Feel free to share as much or as little as you like, and to use your real name or to use a pseudonym – it’s entirely up to you.

    If you prefer to e-mail us at beckrdalliance@gmail.com, we can upload your story for you instead. Please follow us on Twitter (where you can also submit entries by tweet) at @BeckRdAlliance

      Film image

      Soundcloud Clips from ‘Why Did I Go Mad?’

      ‘I went from a whole, healthy little girl into a shattered mind’ ~ Abuse as a catalyst to psychosis

      Dr Eleanor Longdon ~ Voices can be recruited as part of the healing journey.

      Talking with your foe ~ Rai and Dirk explore the power of dialogue with the adversarial voice

      Psychiatrist Sir Robin Murray in conversation with Dr David Strange.

      Dr David Strange in conversation with Professor Richard Bentall for BBC Horizon

      Professor Swaran Singh on the links between social marginalisation and psychosis.

      Jacqui Dillon and Rachel Waddingham interviewed by Rachel Burden for BBC Five Live

      Trauma & Dissociation Journal

      Hearing voices, dissociation, and the self: A functional-analytic perspective

      Abstract

      In the current article, we review existing models of the etiology of voice hearing. We summarize the argument and evidence that voice hearing is primarily a dissociative process involving critical aspects of self. We propose a complementary perspective on these phenomena that is based on a modern behavioral account of complex behavior known as relational frame theory. This type of approach to voice hearing concerns itself with the functions served for the individual by this voice hearing; the necessary history, such as trauma, that establishes these functions; and the relevant dissociative processes involving self and others. In short, we propose a trauma–dissociation developmental trajectory in which trauma impacts negatively on the development of self through the process of dissociation. Using the relational frame theory concept of relations of perspective taking, our dissociation model purports that trauma gives rise to more coordination than distinction relations between self and others, thus weakening an individual’s sense of a distinct self. Voice hearing experiences, therefore, reflect an individual’s perceptions of self and others and may indicate impairments in the natural psychological boundaries between these critical related concepts. One clinical implication suggested by this model is that therapeutic intervention should understand the behaviors associated with a sense of self that is fragile and threatened by others. Relations with self and others should be a key focus of therapy as well as interventions designed to enhance a coherent distinct sense of self.

      Authors: C. McEnteggart , Y.Barnes-Holmes, J. Dillon, J. Egger & J.Oliver

      Published in: Journal of Trauma and Dissociation

      Publisher: Taylor and Francis

      Date: 8th January 2016

      Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15299732.2016.1241851?journalCode=wjtd20

      The Psychological is Political

      Phoenix

      Making Sense of Madness: An emancipatory approach

      7 July 2017, 10 am – 4.30pm, registration from 9.30am

      Hackney House, 25-27 Curtain Road, Hackney, London, EC2A 3LT

      https://madness-london.eventbrite.co.uk

      This unique, one day event, featuring Jacqui Dillon and Rai Waddingham (recently featured on BBC Horizon: Why Did I Go Mad?), explores experiences often dismissed as symptoms of serious mental illness: voices, visions, paranoia, unusual beliefs and altered states, and reframes them as understandable human responses to adversity.

      Drawing from personal and professional experiences of madness, healing and recovery, combined with emerging innovative research findings, Jacqui and Rai present an emancipatory approach to understanding and working with distressing experiences that prioritises respect, personal meaning, self-determination and liberation.

      Download: Making Sense of Madness Flyer

      It includes:

      • Understanding ‘mad’ experiences
      • Exploring factors that can contribute to and shape distress
      • Alternatives to diagnosis – moving beyond the illness model
      • Respectful ways of helping people in distress
      • Strategies to survive and thrive

      This day is suitable for:

      • Anyone interested in understanding more about madness, creativity and the complex spectrum of human experience
      • Those involved in supporting another human beinga – whether this is as a friend, ally, family member, colleague, mental health professional, teacher, therapist, social worker, voluntary sector worker, manager or spiritual advisor
      • All those with lived experience of madness and distress

      Fees:

      • Unwaged: £10
      • Voluntary Sector & Self Funding: £90
      • Statutory & Commercial: £125

      Please get in touch if you’re in a difficult financial position – we may be able to help.

      Register:

      https://madness-london.eventbrite.co.uk

      Jacqui Dillon

      Jacqui on BBC Horizon’s ‘Why Did I Go Mad?’

      HorizonFor hundreds of years, psychiatry has treated voices and hallucinations as an enemy – regarding them as ‘insanity’ or ‘madness’ and seeing them as something to be quashed and even frightened of. But today, new scientific and psychological insights into how the brain works are leading to a radical rethink on what such experiences are – and how they should be treated.

      Horizon follows three people living with voices, hallucinations and paranoia, to explore what causes this kind of phenomena. Providing a rare first-hand insight into these experiences, they reveal just what it is like to live with them day to day. They examine the impact of social, biological and environmental influences on conditions traditionally associated with insanity, such as schizophrenia and psychosis, and within the film they look at how new ways of understanding the brain are leading to a dramatic change in treatments and approaches, and examine whether targeting the root causes of psychosis can lead to recovery. Above all, they try to uncover why it happened to them – and whether it could happen to you.

      Jacqui Dillon

      See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mgxf