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ForwardIs That Mine or Yours? Recognizing and Bringing to Consciousness the Client’s Untold Story
Abstract
It has been established that attachment relationships, most notably between parents and children, include somatosensory communication via mirror neurons. This phenomenon, which can also manifest in the therapeutic relationship, is variously described as radical empathy, resonance, and a form of projective identification. Regardless of its name, empathic attunement to somatosensory information coming from the client can serve as be a powerful conduit for information needed to help them work through dissociated memory material. Information about the client’s experience may present itself to the therapist in ways that the client may not yet recognize in themselves, and which may not be immediately obvious to the therapist without some kind of framework for recognizing, stepping back from, and contextualizing it for the client. This presentation will draw upon the available clinical and scientific literatures to explore empathic attunement as it manifests between the client and therapist. First, existing, psychodynamic, attachment, and dissociation-aware conceptualizations will be touched upon to contextualize this phenomenon; next, the evolution of scientific research that has lent support to these theories will be summarized; then, a practical, integrative technique for recognizing, framing, and bringing to consciousness dissociated material will be described and illustrated, via case examples. Finally, a discussion of the toll that this level of ongoing, deeply-experienced empathic resonance can have upon the therapist, as well as strategies for emotional cleansing, will be offered.
This session was originally presented as a live webinar in January 2021.
Potential to Distress: No
Target Audience
Intermediate
Learning Objectives
Upon Completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Name two ways of contextualizing non-verbal, empathic attunement
- Name at least two studies supporting the existing of mirror neuron function at the emotional level
- Identify three manifestations of empathic attunement in the psychotherapy relationship
- Name the elements of a technique for recognizing, framing, and bringing to consciousness dissociated material to resolve it
- Identify three strategies that can enhance one’s capacity for attunement
Presenter: D Michael Coy, MA, LICSW
Presenter Biography: D. Michael Coy, MA, LICSW, is a Seattle-based therapist whose focus in the integrative treatment of persons who have struggled with the effects of pre-verbal and attachment trauma, addictions/compulsions, and complex trauma and dissociative disorders. Michael is an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, has intermediate training in clinical hypnosis through ASCH, and is Level I trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. He served on the Standards & Training committee of the EMDR International Association from 2014 to 2017. From 2017 to 2020, Michael co-chaired the ISSTD EMDR Therapy Training Task Group, which produced ISSTD's newly EMDRIA-accredited EMDR therapy basic training, which he also co-trains. In 2020, he was appointed to the EMDR Council of Scholars Future of EMDR Therapy Project, Clinical Practice Working Group. Since 2016, Michael has collaborated with Jennifer Madere and Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation developer Paul F. Dell, PhD, to make the MID more accessible to clinicians, and is co-author of the Interpretive Manual for the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation Analysis, 3rd Edition. Additionally, he manages the MID Analysis, which is the calculation program that generates MID results and is currently in version 5.0, and the MID website. Michael currently serves as Treasurer, and in 2019 was named a Fellow, of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD).
Available Credit
- 1.50 APAThe International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
- 1.50 ASWB ACEThe International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), #1744, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. ISSTD maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 08/20/2021 – 08/20/2024. Social workers completing this course receive 1.50 continuing education credits.
- 1.50 ISSTD Certificate ProgramThis program is eligible for 1.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program.
Price
"Your Price" above reflects your final price based on your membership status and career level.
- ISSTD defines a student as those enrolled in a program of study leading to a degree or certification in the mental health field and who have an interest in trauma and dissociation.
- ISSTD defines an emerging professional as mental health professionals who have completed an advanced degree and are in the first three years of their career (or first three years after graduation for researchers).
- If you do not fall into one of the above categories please register as Professional/Retired.
These prices are for Tier I countries. For a list of countries by Tier click here. If you are located in a country that falls into Tier II-VI please contact ISSTD at cfas@isst-d.org to receive the appropriate discount code.