Internal and External Safety
Abstract
Victims of organized abuse, in particular mind control and ritual abuse, frequently have deliberately designed personality systems with parts trained to maintain the security of the perpetrator group. Survivors' physical safety is endangered by parts trained to maintain ongoing contact with perpetrators. I shall discuss the different kinds of access training, with suggestions for preventing and avoiding ongoing access. Survivors are also endangered by parts trained to punish the person for forbidden behavior such as disclosures, so that telling secrets results in decompensation. I shall talk about the structure of the organized personality system, internal hierarchies, the role of punisher parts and their bosses, and ways to prevent or stop symptoms such as emotional flooding, pain, and self-harm which result from punisher parts doing their jobs.
Target Audience
Intermediate, Advanced
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this session participants will be able to:
- Recognize and understand the risk of ongoing or renewed contact with perpetrators for survivors of organized abuse.
- Explain the structured hierarchical personality system and the role of internal bosses and punisher parts.
- Identify the difference between spontaneous decompensation and symptoms resulting from internal punishment, and know how to minimize this punishment.
Presenter: Alison Miller, PhD
Presenter Bio: Dr. Miller is a psychologist recently retired from private practice in British Columbia, Canada. She has worked with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control since 1991. She has been a fellow of the ISST-D (International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation) since 2013. She is the 2017 Chair of the Ritual Abuse/Mind Control/Organized Abuse Special Interest Group of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Her books include: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (for survivors), Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (for therapists), and (with Wendy Hoffman) From the Trenches: A Survivor and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (in press).
Available Credit
- 1.50 ISSTD Certificate ProgramThis program is eligible for 1.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program. No certificate of completion is generated for this type of credit.
Price
ISSTD Member cost:
$0.00
Your Price:
$35.00
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