Pam Stavropoulos PhD

Trauma-Informed Consulting and Critique

Mental Health research reports

Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma

Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma*

(Blue Knot Foundation, updated 2019) *Unanimously endorsed by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) and widely endorsed by experts in the field

https://www.blueknot.org.au/resources/Publications/Practice-Guidelines

‘These updated Practice Guidelines for Treatment of Complex Trauma represent a description of state-of-the-art trauma treatment as it has developed over the past thirty years. No therapist or client can fare badly if these guidelines are followed. They are compassionate, reflect expert knowledge, and yet eminently practical. They should be recommended reading for all therapists who treat complex trauma – i.e., most of us’  (Janina Fisher)

Accompanying the updated guidelines is the research base on which they rest, which includes five new chapters:
(1) ‘Understanding Complex Trauma and the Implications for Treatment’;
(2) ‘What is Dissociation and Why Do We Need to Know About It?’;
(3) ‘Revisiting Phased Treatment for Complex Trauma’;
(4) ‘New and Emerging Treatments’; and
(5) ‘Evidence-based’: the Challenge of and for Complex Trauma’.

Practice Guidelines for Identifying and Treating Complex Trauma-Related Dissociation

Practice Guidelines for Identifying and Treating Complex Trauma-Related Dissociation

(Blue Knot Foundation, 2020) *Additional to the updated (2019) Practice Guidelines above

https://blueknot.org.au/product/practice-guidelines-for-identifying-and-treating-complex-trauma-related-dissociation-printed/

 Dissociation – in simple terms psychological absence from the present moment – is problematic if it is trauma-related. Mindful noticing and awareness are important to healthy functioning and dissociation cuts across this capacity; they are different and incompatible processes. As mindfulness-based approaches are now prominent in diverse varieties of psychotherapy, and dissociation impedes mindful noticing, therapists might be expected to know about dissociation and the challenges it poses to client engagement in the ‘here and now’ of therapy.

In fact, the opposite is the case (‘One characteristic of dissociative phenomena is how frequently they are misdiagnosed or not accounted for at all. Many people in the mental health profession do not know what dissociation looks like or how to assess for it’ (Danychuk & Connors, 2017: 39). These guidelines which address dissociation – and which are additional to the updated guidelines for treatment of complex trauma per se – aim to fill this clinical gap.

They also present the corresponding research base in the form of three chapters:
(1) ‘What is Dissociation and Why Do We Need to Know about It?’ (segue and repeat of ch 2 of the updated complex trauma guidelines;
(2) ‘Dissociation as Default: Structural Dissociation, Childhood Legacies, and Unintegrated Parts’, and
(3) ‘A Healthy Defence Gone Wrong’: Unintegrated self-states (‘parts’) and DID’.

Complementary Guidelines to Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma

Complementary Guidelines to Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma

Blue Knot Foundation 2019 (i.e. two short sets of guidelines within the single publication):

  • (i) Guidelines to Differences between Therapy for Complex Trauma and Standard Counselling Approaches
  • (ii) Guidelines to Therapist Competencies for Working with Complex Trauma and Dissociation

https://www.blueknot.org.au/Resources/Publications/Practice-Guidelines/Complementary-Guidelines

Healing Depression: the Holistic Treatment Approach of a Women’s Health Setting: a research study exploring the efficacy of the treatment interventions of a women’s health setting in relation to women and depression

Healing Depression: the Holistic Treatment Approach of a Women’s Health Setting: a research study exploring the efficacy of the treatment interventions of a women’s health setting in relation to women and depression

(Leichhardt Women’s Community Health Centre, Sydney, 2003).