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Helena Crockford and Melanie Goodwin: Working With Dissociation · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
0:18
Speaker 1: Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Super excited to
0:21
Speaker 1: have as my guest today, Helena Crockford and Melanie Goodwin. Ladies, welcome.
0:28
Speaker 2: Thank you.
0:30
Speaker 1: All right, so Helena Crockford is a consultant clinical psychologist
0:33
Speaker 1: with more than 30 years of experience in NHS adult
0:37
Speaker 1: mental health services. She is a mentalization-based therapy supervisor, an
0:42
Speaker 1: attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and a member of the European Society
0:47
Speaker 1: for Trauma and Dissociation. Throughout her career, she specialized in
0:51
Speaker 1: complex mental health and has championed the development of services
0:55
Speaker 1: and professional skills to better support people with dissociative difficulties.
1:00
Speaker 1: Alongside Melanie, she co-led the development of Working with Dissociation
1:05
Speaker 1: in Clinical Practice, Guidance for Mental Health Professionals, and Multidisciplinary Teams,
1:10
Speaker 1: published by Rutledge in 2026. Melanie Goodwin has lived with
1:16
Speaker 1: dissociative identity disorder throughout her life and has spent more
1:18
Speaker 1: than three decades raising awareness and understanding of complex dissociative disorders.
1:24
Speaker 1: She co-founded First Person Plural, a survivor-led organization that supported
1:30
Speaker 1: people living with DID conditions for 26 years. She's a
1:34
Speaker 1: passionate advocate for ensuring that lived experience voices are central
1:37
Speaker 1: to education, training, and clinical practice. All right, ladies, just
1:43
Speaker 1: a little bit about you. Before we get going, share
1:45
Speaker 1: with our listeners where you're from originally and where you
1:48
Speaker 1: are currently. Helena, why don't we start with you?
1:51
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up in the north of England and
1:55
Speaker 2: moved to London for my professional clinical psychology training and
1:59
Speaker 2: practiced there for 10 years before moving to Norfolk, which
2:02
Speaker 2: is where I live now, which is a lovely rural
2:05
Speaker 2: county in the east of England with a beautiful cathedral
2:09
Speaker 2: city as its main centre.
2:12
Speaker 1: Awesome. All right. How about you, Melanie?
2:15
Speaker 3: I grew up in Sussex, a way away, but I
2:19
Speaker 3: moved to Norfolk to work with horses when I was 18.
2:22
Speaker 3: And I've been here ever since. So Helen and I
2:24
Speaker 3: both sort of work out of Norwich. So I share
2:27
Speaker 3: the similar landscape as Helena. Okay.
2:31
Speaker 1: Okay. Awesome.
2:33
Speaker 2: All right.
2:33
Speaker 1: So we're focusing on the book, Working with Associative Disorders
2:41
Speaker 1: in Clinical Practice. So how does this start? Helena, why
2:45
Speaker 1: don't you begin?
2:45
Speaker 2: I mean, it started as kind of part of my
2:51
Speaker 2: professional journey, actually. I think it's widely known, widely stated now,
2:58
Speaker 2: how little training there is in core mental health trainings
3:04
Speaker 2: in dissociative difficulties and knowing about dissociation, identifying dissociation. And
3:11
Speaker 2: the first person who walked into my consulting room with
3:16
Speaker 2: these kinds of difficulties was about 10 years into my practice.
3:20
Speaker 2: And on reflection, I'm quite sure that they weren't the
3:23
Speaker 2: first because I was working in complex mental health with
3:28
Speaker 2: people with histories of complex trauma. So I'm pretty sure
3:31
Speaker 2: that I just wasn't picking it up as was the
3:34
Speaker 2: case for many of my colleagues. And so I began
3:41
Speaker 2: working with this person who had a diagnosis of paranoid
3:44
Speaker 2: schizophrenia and had been referred to me within the multidisciplinary
3:48
Speaker 2: team for some psychological support. And it wasn't long before
3:53
Speaker 2: what they began to tell me made it clear to
3:56
Speaker 2: me that another kind of explanation for what they were
3:59
Speaker 2: experiencing fitted much better and that they had a history
4:02
Speaker 2: of complex trauma and profound neglect and What happened was
4:08
Speaker 2: that the multidisciplinary team that I worked in had a
4:13
Speaker 2: range of views about this and that actually the context
4:17
Speaker 2: for care ended up not being fantastic, I think, for
4:20
Speaker 2: this person. And not being fantastic for me as a
4:24
Speaker 2: professional within that team because there were differences of opinion
4:28
Speaker 2: that were quite strongly felt and quite strongly held.
4:32
Speaker 1: Excuse me for one second. Helena, just to be more specific,
4:35
Speaker 1: a difference of views, a difference of opinions spanning from
4:39
Speaker 1: this in fact exists to this doesn't exist. I'm guessing.
4:45
Speaker 2: This is psychosis and it's an illness and we should
4:49
Speaker 2: treat it with medication versus my opinion that this was
4:53
Speaker 2: a complex trauma presentation that made sense and helped this
4:56
Speaker 2: person survive and could be helped in a different way. Okay.
5:02
Speaker 1: So, all right, let's pause there. Thank you for that, Helena. Melanie,
5:07
Speaker 1: where does this journey start for you?
5:11
Speaker 3: I think this journey of awareness that I have DID
5:14
Speaker 3: started in my early 40s, and I've been on it
5:17
Speaker 3: now for 35 years or so. Before that, I was
5:22
Speaker 3: a very high-functioning, be it robotic person with four children, working,
5:30
Speaker 3: running a business from home, you name it, I was
5:32
Speaker 3: doing it. It was filling more hours than there are
5:34
Speaker 3: in a day, which I think is quite usual for
5:36
Speaker 3: people with DID. We seem to be able to cram
5:39
Speaker 3: more in than most people. And as I began to
5:42
Speaker 3: understand much more about myself and began to, memories started
5:45
Speaker 3: coming of being abused as a child and things and
5:49
Speaker 3: beginning to process it because I was lucky enough to
5:51
Speaker 3: have an excellent therapist who really got DID after a
5:55
Speaker 3: long trek without DID. I just thought it's such a
5:58
Speaker 3: logical way of being if you're in impossible situations that,
6:03
Speaker 3: you know, the medical profession would take it on board
6:05
Speaker 3: and everything would be wonderful. Of course it wasn't. So
6:10
Speaker 3: I think I have a bit of a fighting spirit
6:12
Speaker 3: and I spent, I really wanted people to understand because
6:16
Speaker 3: it just made such sense. And those professionals within the
6:21
Speaker 3: health service who were willing to listen and said, do
6:24
Speaker 3: you know what? I really get it. And now I
6:26
Speaker 3: can think of at least three other people I've seen
6:28
Speaker 3: in the past who, you know, if only I'd understood
6:31
Speaker 3: it more. And so there were lots of people who
6:33
Speaker 3: were very open to the possibility and have opened doors
6:37
Speaker 3: for us to walk through. And then Helena said about
6:40
Speaker 3: the book, would I co-chair the steering group? And I
6:44
Speaker 3: thought that's an absolutely wonderful opportunity because I was coming
6:47
Speaker 3: towards the end of my voluntary life promoting DID awareness.
6:54
Speaker 3: And it's brought together my whole life. It's been just
6:58
Speaker 3: an absolute amazing opportunity to use all I've learned through
7:02
Speaker 3: running First Person Plural, getting to know, meeting hundreds of
7:06
Speaker 3: people with DID. It's an absolute privilege. And to be
7:10
Speaker 3: able to use that knowledge as well as my own
7:12
Speaker 3: personal experience to bring together a book that helps address
7:16
Speaker 3: the fragmentation, not only of my own self and people
7:20
Speaker 3: with DID, but within the health service, within... all sorts
7:23
Speaker 3: of ways. You know, there was a bit of knowledge
7:25
Speaker 3: out there about this and a bit of knowledge out
7:27
Speaker 3: there about that, but never in one place. And what
7:29
Speaker 3: we wanted to do was bring it together as a
7:31
Speaker 3: starting point for people who could pick it up and
7:34
Speaker 3: find the information they needed, the pathway they needed to
7:37
Speaker 3: be following. So that's really how... And Helen and I
7:41
Speaker 3: had worked quite a lot in training within the Trust
7:45
Speaker 3: over 10 years, I think it was. So we had
7:47
Speaker 3: a good, solid background of understanding each other and.
7:52
Speaker 3: Had the same aims, I think.
7:54
Speaker 1: Melanie, you talked about your life filled with activities, crammed
8:03
Speaker 1: with activities. Were you seeing a therapist before you realized?
8:14
Speaker 3: No.
8:15
Speaker 1: No, you weren't?
8:16
Speaker 3: I didn't, no. I had a major trauma in my
8:19
Speaker 3: current life when I was 39. which began to break
8:24
Speaker 3: down the amnesic barriers. And then once that process starts,
8:28
Speaker 3: it's sort of irreversible, I think, in adulthood. And I
8:32
Speaker 3: had to get help then, which was a seven or
8:35
Speaker 3: eight year journey to get the right help. And that
8:38
Speaker 3: was traumatic in its own right. But no, I wasn't.
8:42
Speaker 3: I managed to get by. Looking back, I had self-regulated
8:47
Speaker 3: over the many years by working in one place all
8:50
Speaker 3: the years I did. not going away on holiday, keeping
8:53
Speaker 3: my life very narrow so everything I could manage. And
8:57
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people with DID do that.
8:58
Speaker 3: You're either very chaotic or you're as robotic and as
9:01
Speaker 3: stilted as I was. Interesting.
9:06
Speaker 1: Okay, so Helena, how do you both meet and how
9:11
Speaker 1: does this book come to fruition?
9:17
Speaker 2: So I guess that kind of first experience I had
9:21
Speaker 2: of meeting someone with DID in my clinical practice kind
9:25
Speaker 2: of got iterated many times. And as a senior clinician,
9:28
Speaker 2: I was then hearing that from colleagues and supporting other
9:34
Speaker 2: professionals with their practice. And then I had leadership roles
9:39
Speaker 2: within my national professional organisations, our clinical psychology national bodies,
9:45
Speaker 2: and began to hear the similar stories from colleagues across
9:49
Speaker 2: the country. So that experience kind of prompted trying to
9:57
Speaker 2: do something within my mental health organization. to raise awareness
10:02
Speaker 2: and raise skills. So I led a strategy for that.
10:04
Speaker 2: And part of that strategy was to do some training.
10:08
Speaker 2: And the first day of the training was led by
10:10
Speaker 2: Melanie and her colleague, Catherine, who were the co-founders of
10:15
Speaker 2: the national charity First Person Plural. And it was profoundly
10:20
Speaker 2: impactful hearing their accounts.
10:24
Speaker 1: What specifically, Helena, what was specifically impactful for you that
10:29
Speaker 1: you heard?
10:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess there's something very different from reading
10:35
Speaker 2: about something in a book or hearing a kind of
10:39
Speaker 2: professional research-based teaching and training to hearing actually the lived
10:46
Speaker 2: experience of um and uh Catherine and Melanie had a
10:51
Speaker 2: great gift for doing that for sharing what they lived
10:55
Speaker 2: through but without that um uh you know in a
10:59
Speaker 2: way that was safe for both them and and the
11:01
Speaker 2: professionals listening um and brought a lot of kind of
11:05
Speaker 2: honesty warmth and humor to that um and I think
11:08
Speaker 2: there's something about hearing uh people's own accounts lived experience
11:13
Speaker 2: that that kind of um it's a sort of hearts
11:16
Speaker 2: and minds thing that you might understand something with your
11:18
Speaker 2: mind from when you're trained professionally, but actually understanding the
11:22
Speaker 2: impact of it and the importance of it and kind of,
11:25
Speaker 2: you know, coming at it at that sort of heart level.
11:28
Speaker 2: I think that that's probably where it really touched me,
11:31
Speaker 2: just how important this was and how, how much, you know,
11:36
Speaker 2: what we could do to be doing things differently where I,
11:38
Speaker 2: where I worked.
11:40
Speaker 1: Melanie, taking a step back and kind of, responding a
11:45
Speaker 1: little bit to what Helena just shared, what has your
11:50
Speaker 1: lived experience been like? If you can put that in
11:53
Speaker 1: a nutshell, just give us some idea.
11:55
Speaker 3: It's been an absolute roller coaster. It's had its highs
12:00
Speaker 3: and lows. When I first started training, I mean, Catherine
12:04
Speaker 3: and I always had a passion about raising an awareness
12:10
Speaker 3: and getting the word out there. Also, both of us
12:13
Speaker 3: were breaking every rule that was imposed on us as
12:15
Speaker 3: children that we should never tell, we should not speak out.
12:18
Speaker 3: So we did that, but that had a high price
12:23
Speaker 3: to pay in that the first few years when I
12:26
Speaker 3: did any work, I would be unable to move and
12:29
Speaker 3: speak for two or three days afterwards. The terror was enormous.
12:32
Speaker 3: But gradually, the more we did and we found nothing
12:34
Speaker 3: bad happened, it was actually a really big part of
12:38
Speaker 3: my whole journey And I don't like the word healing journey,
12:41
Speaker 3: and I don't like the word journey particularly, but I've
12:43
Speaker 3: gone from surviving to thriving. And something Helena said very
12:48
Speaker 3: early on about people thought of it as an illness. Never,
12:52
Speaker 3: ever do I think of it as an illness, but
12:54
Speaker 3: sometimes it can make me quite poorly. And functioning was
12:57
Speaker 3: incredibly difficult. So in the early years, when memories were
13:00
Speaker 3: coming back, and because I hadn't been in therapy that
13:06
Speaker 3: contained it, memories flooded me. So I... talk about walking
13:10
Speaker 3: around in trauma land for seven years, which was hell
13:13
Speaker 3: and hanging on by the skin of my teeth. But
13:15
Speaker 3: then I got into this therapy, which was containing DID focus.
13:19
Speaker 3: And I was lucky enough to have enough to make
13:21
Speaker 3: a real change. Things began to stabilize. I became a
13:27
Speaker 3: much more better mother in many ways. But also comes
13:34
Speaker 3: with change is what has happened before as an adult
13:38
Speaker 3: and how sad I am about some of the parenting
13:41
Speaker 3: I did early on. So it was a real roller coaster.
13:44
Speaker 3: But now, at my age, I'm well on. I'm getting
13:49
Speaker 3: on with my life out there. I have amazing family
13:52
Speaker 3: around me, grandkids that keep me going. And I can
13:55
Speaker 3: be with them in a totally different way. So I
13:58
Speaker 3: want to offer a little bit of hope to people
14:00
Speaker 3: who are in the blackest and darkest times. There's I
14:03
Speaker 3: always had that tiny chink of light at the end
14:06
Speaker 3: of the tunnel. I hadn't got a clue where I
14:07
Speaker 3: was going. I didn't know what was going to happen.
14:09
Speaker 3: But I always hung on to it would be different.
14:12
Speaker 3: I didn't know if it would be better or worse,
14:13
Speaker 3: but it can be different. And that was very powerful. And,
14:16
Speaker 3: you know, to arrive here, I'm not, it's been, I can't,
14:21
Speaker 3: I still don't have words to really convey how tough
14:25
Speaker 3: the journey has been. But I want people to understand
14:28
Speaker 3: if they can keep fighting to get what you know
14:31
Speaker 3: you need. and make the most of it when you do,
14:36
Speaker 3: and try and keep what I call ordinary life going
14:40
Speaker 3: alongside it, because I was so overwhelmed by the enormity
14:44
Speaker 3: of it. The ordinary side was very hard to hang
14:47
Speaker 3: on to, but I think there's a lot more understanding
14:49
Speaker 3: now about managing both dealing with the past and living
14:54
Speaker 3: in the present, whereas before you kind of put the
14:56
Speaker 3: present aside to deal with the past, but now the
14:59
Speaker 3: two are managed so much more in tandem, I think.
15:02
Speaker 3: And then meeting Helena, who believed in me all the
15:06
Speaker 3: way along. And she's given me so many opportunities to
15:08
Speaker 3: be able to speak out. And she's always treated me
15:12
Speaker 3: as an equal partner in everything we've done, which she
15:15
Speaker 3: has been such, again, no words to describe what that's
15:20
Speaker 3: given me personally. It's just been there the whole time.
15:23
Speaker 3: And so I think between, we've got a bit of
15:25
Speaker 3: an admiration society going on here, haven't we, Helena? Because
15:28
Speaker 3: we know neither of us could have done this without
15:30
Speaker 3: the other at this time. And Catherine as well, my colleague.
15:36
Speaker 3: You know, we all came with different skills and gifts,
15:39
Speaker 3: but we all had one hope of changing things for others.
15:42
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. Thanks, Melanie. Helena, what is DID?
15:55
Speaker 3: Well, I would say.
15:58
Speaker 2: It's a response to complex trauma. And complex trauma is
16:04
Speaker 2: multiple traumas, usually within an attachment context. So where there's
16:09
Speaker 2: no escape, if you like. And trauma alongside inadequate attachment
16:17
Speaker 2: relationships where there isn't the support to process the trauma.
16:21
Speaker 2: So it's that sort of ultimate kind of toxic combination.
16:26
Speaker 2: So being alone in psychological pain, for example. And so
16:33
Speaker 2: my understanding then is that things have to be kind
16:37
Speaker 2: of segregated and separated. Experiences can't be integrated into a
16:44
Speaker 2: sort of coherent narrative of life or sense of self.
16:48
Speaker 2: And that's a survival mechanism, part of our kind of
16:53
Speaker 2: basic neuro-biological, bio-behavioral kind of threat responses. So it's something that,
17:03
Speaker 2: you know, rather than an illness, going back to that again,
17:06
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense in terms of survival. So
17:11
Speaker 2: that's how I would understand it. And, yeah, that can be,
17:16
Speaker 2: and I think it looks different with every single person
17:19
Speaker 2: that I've ever come across who would meet the criteria
17:22
Speaker 2: for that diagnosis. And I make sense of that in
17:26
Speaker 2: terms of this as this individual person's response to the
17:30
Speaker 2: particular disease. circumstances that they encountered when they were when
17:34
Speaker 2: they were growing up okay.
17:38
Speaker 1: So getting back to the book working with association and
17:41
Speaker 1: clinical practice guidance for mental health professionals and multidisciplinary teams
17:45
Speaker 1: when you both sat down and said let's write this
17:50
Speaker 1: book what did you want to say helena why don't
17:52
Speaker 1: you start what did you want to do what was
17:54
Speaker 1: important to get out.
17:58
Speaker 2: So one thing that was really important about it is
18:01
Speaker 2: that it's been this national project through our national professional organisation,
18:07
Speaker 2: the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK. And I think one
18:15
Speaker 2: of my visions for this was that it's a resource
18:20
Speaker 2: that practitioners, psychologists, but all multidisciplinary professionals could pick off
18:26
Speaker 2: the shelf could open up when they've got a complex
18:29
Speaker 2: clinical question and find something that will help them. So
18:34
Speaker 2: a bit like having a supervisor that you go to,
18:37
Speaker 2: but there aren't enough people around in the country who
18:39
Speaker 2: know what to do in relation to dissociation at the
18:43
Speaker 2: moment because there's such a lack of training in core
18:45
Speaker 2: mental health professional trainings. And so, you know, that vision
18:51
Speaker 2: in a way of having a resource that people can
18:53
Speaker 2: turn to when they've got a query or a conundrum
18:56
Speaker 2: or a feeling unsure.
19:00
Speaker 1: So a resource clinicians can go to when they had
19:04
Speaker 1: a clinical issue. Melanie, taking that as the context here,
19:12
Speaker 1: what did you want to make sure in that sense
19:15
Speaker 1: was portrayed in this book? maybe clinicians needed to know this,
19:22
Speaker 1: and this is how this is important, for example.
19:26
Speaker 3: I think there was several main points, but one of
19:29
Speaker 3: the main things was we didn't use clinical language. We
19:32
Speaker 3: had a target audience because we needed to focus on
19:35
Speaker 3: a specific group of people to allow us to write it.
19:40
Speaker 3: But it's about, it doesn't use lots of medicalised language.
19:46
Speaker 3: We wanted to make an offering to people. It's a
19:48
Speaker 3: sharing about Try it. this or try that, we're not
19:51
Speaker 3: telling you this is the definition of how you do it,
19:53
Speaker 3: these are ideas, we've brought together lots of ideas, no,
19:57
Speaker 3: as Helena rightly says, everybody's different, so everybody needs a
20:01
Speaker 3: different journey, but also throughout we've got the lived experience
20:05
Speaker 3: voice and we've had the most amazing people contribute with
20:08
Speaker 3: such succinct statements or a little bit more than that
20:13
Speaker 3: and different parts have come on board with different people
20:17
Speaker 3: so it's been a truly inclusive book but also we've
20:22
Speaker 3: got diversity has been we've been so lucky we've had
20:25
Speaker 3: two people who have got the lived experience of being
20:30
Speaker 3: of being very diverse within this culture and have brought
20:33
Speaker 3: that to light. So I think throughout, but what the
20:36
Speaker 3: big thing is, the book on completion and publication is
20:40
Speaker 3: a beginning. This is now a living document. It's not
20:43
Speaker 3: to go on a shelf and be dusted. We say
20:45
Speaker 3: to people, you know, take it, read it, pass it
20:49
Speaker 3: on to others. And we've already had just, we had
20:52
Speaker 3: a conference a few weeks back and there was a
20:54
Speaker 3: young woman there who'd been on a hospital ward being
20:56
Speaker 3: very inappropriately medicated and treated. She gave the book to
21:01
Speaker 3: the staff who read the bit she'd highlighted, changed the
21:04
Speaker 3: way they worked with her, and it had an outcome
21:08
Speaker 3: that was so different.
21:10
Speaker 1: Okay. In this podcast, we need specifics. So I'm not
21:17
Speaker 1: asking you, obviously, to disclose anybody's private information, obviously. But Melanie,
21:22
Speaker 1: give us an example from your own experience, if you can.
21:28
Speaker 1: What are we talking about? What is important for clinicians
21:31
Speaker 1: to know? For example, with the understanding that everyone's different,
21:35
Speaker 1: but let's hear from you.
21:36
Speaker 3: I think the main thing is treat us as intelligent
21:41
Speaker 3: human beings. Listen respectfully. Be curious. Just do what you
21:46
Speaker 3: do with anybody else who isn't sitting in a medical room. Courtesy, delight.
21:51
Speaker 3: Get back to people on time that you offer. Do
21:54
Speaker 3: what you do to every other living soul apart from
21:57
Speaker 3: that patient sat in front of you. That is, to me,
22:01
Speaker 3: the main, main message. It's not clever. Anybody can help us,
22:06
Speaker 3: and nobody will know which parts they've helped over the
22:10
Speaker 3: years by just being there for me. Not knowing, understanding DID,
22:15
Speaker 3: but just listening. I'm having a really bad day. Okay,
22:18
Speaker 3: come on, let's go for a walk. Just treat us
22:21
Speaker 3: as ordinary human beings and listen.
22:26
Speaker 1: You know what I'm here hearing? No, no, no, no, no.
22:31
Speaker 4: This is it.
22:32
Speaker 1: This is great.
22:33
Speaker 4: Treat me like a human being. Why is what you
22:37
Speaker 4: just said is seemingly so basic, so simple. Why are
22:46
Speaker 4: some clinicians.
22:49
Speaker 1: What not able to do that? Not all of course.
22:53
Speaker 3: Why?
22:54
Speaker 1: Is it ignorance? Is it, oh my gosh, I don't
22:58
Speaker 1: want to re-traumatize this person? Is it fear? What is it?
23:03
Speaker 3: I think it's all those things. I think there's a
23:05
Speaker 3: lot of fear. I think there's the claim culture at
23:07
Speaker 3: the moment, totally.
23:09
Speaker 1: The what culture?
23:11
Speaker 3: The claim culture. If things go wrong, people sue people.
23:16
Speaker 3: This is a complex area, if you make it complex.
23:19
Speaker 3: But if you take it back to basics and listen
23:22
Speaker 3: to what's happening... Totally logical. And the other, can I
23:25
Speaker 3: just say the other thing that I'm very, very passionate
23:28
Speaker 3: about is if my three-year-old's out in therapy, we're very lucky,
23:33
Speaker 3: we don't switch very much out in the world, but
23:35
Speaker 3: in therapy. But if somebody does, they sort of say,
23:40
Speaker 3: put yourself together, stop acting like that. When my three-year-old
23:45
Speaker 3: used to be in my body, she had sole charge
23:47
Speaker 3: of that. I couldn't stop it any more than I
23:50
Speaker 3: could fly to the moon. It's real. It's not as if.
23:53
Speaker 3: It's not like I've gone into another sort of way
23:56
Speaker 3: of being, but I have choice. It's, you know, it
24:00
Speaker 3: was absolute. And that's the other thing I want people
24:03
Speaker 3: to just understand. And again, I think it frightens people.
24:07
Speaker 3: They're so scared. They tip you over the edge. And
24:09
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it is fear. But I
24:11
Speaker 3: get fed up with it now because there's so much
24:14
Speaker 3: out there written about it that clinicians don't, should not,
24:19
Speaker 3: not know about it because there's enough information and it's
24:22
Speaker 3: got to get in the other thing my list is
24:25
Speaker 3: rather long but the other thing is i would love
24:27
Speaker 3: to see it in all training for all medics anybody
24:30
Speaker 3: who anybody working with people they haven't got to be
24:34
Speaker 3: delivering therapy but just that basic understanding so they're not
24:38
Speaker 3: frightened when you know it just this respectful curiosity is
24:44
Speaker 3: the thing i can't stress enough which you do to
24:47
Speaker 3: anybody else don't.
24:48
Speaker 1: You Appreciate that. Helena, during this process for you, this journey,
24:57
Speaker 1: if I can use that word, in your understanding about DID,
25:07
Speaker 1: as we sit here now, when you look back to
25:10
Speaker 1: maybe when you first started out, what's changed for you?
25:16
Speaker 1: When you think about what you've learned, what's been important
25:21
Speaker 1: for you, critical for you?
25:23
Speaker 2: It's really hard to narrow it down because I think
25:29
Speaker 2: there's so many things. But I think there's something about...
25:34
Speaker 2: I think this area of complex trauma hits at some
25:41
Speaker 2: of the most profound questions of human existence.
25:46
Speaker 4: And.
25:48
Speaker 2: You know, issues of kind of, you know, good and evil,
25:50
Speaker 2: if you like, or some of the worst, the worst
25:53
Speaker 2: things that people can do to each other. Um, and
25:57
Speaker 2: I think that there's something around kind of healing or, um,
26:03
Speaker 2: you know, witnessing to, or, um, um, you know, being
26:10
Speaker 2: alongside people as they, as they, um, as they kind
26:13
Speaker 2: of survive, as they travel, as they navigate, um, uh,
26:17
Speaker 2: you know, a life and to a better place. And
26:21
Speaker 2: it's profoundly impactful, profoundly moving. And yeah, I think it's just,
26:31
Speaker 2: you know, I go on being kind of interested and
26:34
Speaker 2: absorbed and moved and touched and feel it's worthwhile. And
26:40
Speaker 2: such a lot can happen from quite basic things. So,
26:44
Speaker 2: you know, as Melanie sort of pointed out, it's not
26:46
Speaker 2: necessarily the clever stuff. It's an incredibly complex presentation. But
26:52
Speaker 2: actually what we need to do as practitioners is the
26:55
Speaker 2: simplest things in response to that is kind of part
26:59
Speaker 2: of my view. Just staying curious, just staying human.
27:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:07
Speaker 2: Listening and helping people to unravel where they're at, believing
27:10
Speaker 2: it and being accurate is one of my key things
27:14
Speaker 2: identifying where dissociation is present and having those conversations with
27:19
Speaker 2: people because actually even that can be profoundly transformative if
27:25
Speaker 2: someone is living with fear of that they're mad or
27:29
Speaker 2: that they've got evil spirits inside them those are the
27:31
Speaker 2: kind of things that I've heard often And then you
27:35
Speaker 2: begin to find a different language for it that you
27:38
Speaker 2: can say, well, this is something I've come across before.
27:40
Speaker 2: Here are some measures that shows that there's many other
27:42
Speaker 2: people who've experienced this. You know, it can be profoundly
27:47
Speaker 2: impactful and sort of garner, engage people's own coping and
27:52
Speaker 2: resources and strategies to, you know, find out things, you know,
27:57
Speaker 2: find out information, connect with people and get people on
28:01
Speaker 2: a sort of the start of a healing journey.
28:05
Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, Melanie, first of all,
28:07
Speaker 1: I just want to say, to come on a podcast
28:11
Speaker 1: like this and to, first of all, to agree to
28:15
Speaker 1: come on a podcast like this, I so appreciate you
28:19
Speaker 1: doing that and to share a bit about your story.
28:23
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that's amazing. And no matter how
28:28
Speaker 1: you cut it, I think it's very courageous. Truly it is.
28:32
Speaker 1: It really is. And you might say, Guys, shut up.
28:36
Speaker 1: It's not courageous. I don't like that word or whatever.
28:39
Speaker 1: But I just really appreciate you doing that. And you're just,
28:44
Speaker 1: you're an inspiration. I appreciate it. yeah yeah um helen
29:52
Speaker 1: as we close out here um who's the book for um.
30:00
Speaker 2: It's for uh psychological practitioners it's for multidisciplinary mental health
30:06
Speaker 2: staff psychiatrists social workers psychiatric nurses um support workers, and
30:14
Speaker 2: it's also for people who are using services, so people
30:18
Speaker 2: with lived experience and their supporters.
30:21
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. And, all right, so let's talk about the
30:26
Speaker 1: best way for people to get the book. What's the
30:29
Speaker 1: best way?
30:31
Speaker 2: So it's available on all, you know, normal book platforms,
30:37
Speaker 2: but the publisher is Routledge, so routledge.com. is uh it
30:42
Speaker 2: is you know one good way to get hold of
30:43
Speaker 2: it and i think there's probably still an offer code
30:46
Speaker 2: available on that as well okay we'll
30:49
Speaker 1: Have that linked up here at the show notes page
30:51
Speaker 1: at the traumatherapistpodcast.com melanie helena appreciate both of you inspiration
30:58
Speaker 1: really thank you so much for being here all right
31:04
Speaker 1: take care