Understanding and Treating
Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation:
Exploring Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) through the Lens of Interpersonal Neurobiology

A groundbreaking program that combines scientific foundations, treatment planning, and a conversation with one of Dr. Siegel’s former clients about her healing journey using the steps of integration of Interpersonal Neurobiology, which incorporates discussions of the Wheel of Awareness and Window of Tolerance.

What is “Dissociative Identity Disorder” and how does it relate to trauma?

Dissociative Identity Disorder (“DID”) is a mental health disorder in which an individual’s experience of self becomes fragmented, and “self-states” become split off or separated from consciousness. 

Dissociation takes many forms, such as depersonalization and derealization, and serves as a reaction to developmental trauma when an individual is faced with repeated betrayal such as abuse or neglect from those in a position of trust.  This “biological paradox” gives rise to conflictual emotions and the drive of going both toward and away from the same attachment figure resulting in irresolvable fear and a fragmentation of the mind.

From the Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB)  perspective, such traumatic relational experiences disrupt the capacity for integration, moving individuals outside an array of context-specific windows of tolerance for a range of emotions, making them prone to chaos and rigidity, and isolating  “self-states” in DID as separated fragments of a whole waiting for the healing process of integration to bring them back to an experience of wholeness. 

Why should you consider taking this course on Treating Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation?

Whether you are a therapist or a clinician, you may have noticed that some mental health disorders receive a lot of attention, while others are rarely discussed in professional and academic environments. With lack of attention and formal training, conceptualization and treatment of less discussed mental disorders can become a challenge. This course brings you the rare opportunity to observe and learn from a real life client’s experience of Dissociative Identity Disorder (“DID”) as an illustration of the impact and treatment of disorganized attachment and dissociation.  

In this course, you will receive a never before seen interview with Dr. Dan Siegel’s former client who was diagnosed and healed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and has gone on to study psychology and practice psychotherapy for the last 20 years. 

 

With so many different therapeutic orientations to work with trauma, what makes this approach useful for treating Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Although there are many different therapeutic techniques to address and treat trauma, IPNB’s focus on integration as the basis of well-being illuminates how DID is an outcome of the excessive isolation of different “self states” revealing excessive differentiation and impaired linkage.  Through the treatment of the individual as a whole and the attunement to individual self-states, the clinician is able to understand and facilitate the linkage of the function of each individual dissociated facet of the person, processing the psychological material that is held in isolation within each separated state and then facilitating the integration—the linkage of differentiated states—of the individual as a whole person.

Through the integrative experience of an attuned relationship between the therapist and client, deep processing of traumatic material is made possible through the presence, attunement, resonance, and trust within the therapeutic relationship. This relationship allows the client to integrate psychological material, creating coherence between self-states, and enabling an integrative individual to access a wide array of memories and emotions with widened windows of tolerance and more adaptive responses to challenge within the person as a whole. 

Course Overview

In this course you will have the opportunity to become immersed in a one-of-a-kind interview with Dr. Dan Siegel’s former client who was diagnosed with DID and worked through the trauma and dissociative barriers to heal the condition through therapy. She has gone on to practice psychotherapy for the last 20 years.  DID is a mental health condition in which an individual’s experience of self becomes fragmented, and “self-states” become separated from one another, interrupting the continuity of consciousness. In this course, you will learn how to work with differentiated self-states by processing implicit traumatic memories, treating attachment patterns that are disorganized, and catalyzing relational trust and healing to create lasting change and the experience of an open, coherent autobiographical narrative, wider windows of tolerance, an access to the “open plane of possibility” with the Wheel of Awareness practice, and the deeply transformative experience of living with wholeness.

This course will enable you to learn the specific assessment and treatment strategies to effectively care for those with DID.  Understanding DID also affords us the chance to gain insights into dissociation as a response to disorganized attachment relationships while also learning about the developmental and neurobiological nature of attachment, clinical conceptualization of working with dissociation, and treatment approaches to healing the post-traumatic sequelae of developmental trauma.

IPNB is not a “form of therapy” but rather a deep understanding of the mind and mental health that informs all forms of therapy, and in this course we will focus on the integration of differentiated, fragmented self-states of DID. Through the relational connection established therapeutically with each of the self-states, the clinician is able to observe and understand the function of each individual part, find a bridge across states through open awareness cultivated in integrative practices in session and at home, and then process the psychological experiences and adaptive role that is protected within each segmented state. This relational connection also allows the client to integrate previously fragmented forms of memory and emotion, creating coherence across self-states, and dismantling the previously necessary dissociative barriers to liberate a new way of living with fluidity, integration, and wholeness.

Here are some highlights of what you will learn:

Sample Lecture

Course Details

9

Hours of Course Video

9

Homestudy CE Credits

Scientific Foundations of Disorganized Attachment

Cutting-edge science and insights into the dynamics of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Also includes in-depth client interview and topical presentations along with detailed outlines and notes

Assessment and treatment strategies

5-Phase step by step guide to assessing and treating Dissociative Identity Disorder

Online Learning Community
and Study Groups

The option to join an online learning community or study groups with your peers to share and collaborate

3 Live Q & As with Dr. Dan Siegel

Your opportunity to connect directly with Dr. Siegel and ask your questions

1. October 29th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT
2. November 5th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT
3. November 12th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT

Our Students

Who Takes this Course?

This course is designed for mental health practitioners.

Meet Your Teacher

Dr. Dan Siegel

Dan Siegel is the executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where he was also co-principal investigator of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and clinical professor at the School of Medicine.

An award-winning educator, Dan is the author of five New York Times bestsellers and other books which have been translated into over forty languages. He is the founding editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, and has overseen the publication of over one hundred textbooks in this transdisciplinary framework focusing on the mind and mental health.

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dan completed his postgraduate training at UCLA specializing in pediatrics and adult, adolescent, and child psychiatry. He was trained in attachment research and narrative analysis through a National Institute of Mental Health research training fellowship focusing on how relationships shape our autobiographical ways of making sense of our lives and influence our development across the lifespan.

What Our Students Have to Say

Testimonial by Dr. Siegel's Client

Student Testimonials

"It is rare to find a training resource that takes professionals deep into the true complexities of Interpersonal Neurobiology. Dan Siegel's course, Understanding and Treating Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation, was of extremely high quality: well structured, professionally challenging, and designed to develop excellent, clinically informed practice. It is extremely forward thinking to recognise that a range of professions encounter complex trauma and need to respond with clinical and relational excellence. Thanks to [Dr. Siegel’s] intense, well-resourced course, I have up-to-date knowledge regarding survival strategies in victims. Continuous access to the [online] platform means this is a learning experience well worth investing in."
Alissa
Therapeutic Social Worker (Children and Families and Post-Sexual Abuse)
Barcelona, Spain
"I was very impressed with the information that was provided in the course, [Understanding and Treating Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation]. I believe the firsthand account of someone who has lived with DID and is now a clinician herself was fundamental in helping me understand how to work with this presentation. I found the live Q and A session[s] especially helpful. Thank you for providing this training opportunity. I look forward to taking other Mindsight courses."
Vanessa Brookhouse
LPC Specializing in DBT
West Linn, OR, USA

Sample Q & A

Sample Q & A with Dr. Siegel

Join Today

On-Demand Option

  • 9 hours of Course Video

  • 9 Homestudy CE Credits

  • Lifetime Access to the Content

Eight payments of

$59/week

Continuing Education Credit (CEC) Information

This course is designed for mental health practitioners.

This program offers 9 homestudy CE credits for psychologists and California licensed MFTs, LCSWs, LEPs, LPCCs, nurses, and chiropractors.

  • Please visit our Continuing Education Credit information page for full CEC Provider information, including license applicability, attendance requirements, cancellation, and grievance policies.
  • For those licensed by a different board, please contact your licensing board directly to verify that the credits offered by the Mindsight Institute will be accepted. The Mindsight Institute does not confirm the applicability of credit for those with licenses different than those listed on our CEC information page.
  • Credit is awarded for recorded instructional time only and does not include optional live Q&A sessions, if available.
  • The SCA is a provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number CEP16887 for 9 contact hours.

To review this program’s learning objectives, please click here.

Additional Benefits

Satisfaction Guaranteed

If you are not completely satisfied, we will promptly issue you a refund within 7 days from the start of the course

Group

Group Program

Save 15% when you sign up with a buddy or a group – Fill out our contact form to get started

Safe and Secure

We provide our courses using the latest technology to ensure security

Have Questions?

Continuing Education Credit (CEC) is co-sponsored by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) and the Mindsight Institute.

CECs are available for psychologists, and California licensed MFTs, LCSWs, LEPs, LPCCs, Nurses, and Chiropractors, and may be applicable for other licenses. It is the responsibility of the participant to determine if their accreditation board will accept the credits offered by the Mindsight Institute. To learn more, please visit our CEC Information Page.

No, there is no additional charge to receive CE Credits. To obtain your CE Credits and Certificate, please email the Mindsight Institute Team at info@mindsightinstitute.com to request an exam (you can take an exam after completion of each segment or at the end of the entire course – that is up to you). Once your exam is graded and processed, a digital CE Credit Certificate will be emailed to you.

Absolutely. Once you have completed the course, just email the Mindsight Team at info@mindsightinstitute.com and a Certificate of Completion will be processed and a digital copy will be emailed to you.

Dr. Siegel is well-known for his ability to make complex scientific concepts accessible, and provides plenty of detailed applications to our work and personal lives.  Rest assured that prerequisites and/or a science background are not required in order to benefit from this course.

Once you enroll in the class, you will receive details from the Mindsight Institute via email regarding access to your course and the online learning community. These emails will be sent prior to the first day of the class.We will be rolling out two lectures each week. You will receive access to the first segments of the course prior to the first day of the course being live and open, and then the next set of lectures will be made available to you in the following week, and so on…This is a self-paced program and you will be able to learn at your convenience. We do, however, encourage you to take part in the online learning community, and to join the 3 live, weekly Q & A sessions with Dan to ask questions and discuss material suggested in the corresponding course sequence.

This course begins on Monday, October 21, 2024, with live Q&A with Dr. Siegel on:

1. October 29th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT
2. November 5th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT
3. November 12th, 2024: 11 a.m., PT

Not a problem! We will record each live Q&A for viewing by course participants at any other time convenient to your schedule.

The course is a self-paced program that does not require live attendance. The only times that we have scheduled are for the live Q & A sessions and we have done our best to accommodate our students from around the globe. Our current course has participants from over 20 countries. Also, we will record each session so you can view it at your convenience.

In addition, we would encourage you to keep in contact with other students and our team here at the Mindsight Institute via the online learning community. This will be a great resource for you and will offer you the opportunity to exchange ideas with other students, and even submit questions for Dr. Siegel if you cannot make any of the live Q & As.

You can pay for the course upfront with either Paypal or Credit Card or enroll in our weekly payment plan. The monthly payment plan is only available for credit cards.

You will retain access to the course content for as long as it remains available on our platform.

The course videos cannot be downloaded; however, they can be watched on any device and can be streamed at your convenience.

Yes! If for any reason you are unhappy with the course please contact us within the first 7 days for a full refund.

The online community will be a gathering place for additional learning and sharing and will be made up of your peers who are also registered for the class, as well as a group facilitator. This will also be the location where all notices, reminders, and more information will be shared from the Mindsight Institute and Dr. Siegel. Once you enroll in the course, you will get an email invitation with all of the instructions to join the online learning community.

Join Today

On-Demand Option

  • 9 hours of Course Video

  • 9 Homestudy CE Credits

  • Lifetime Access to the Content

Eight payments of

$59/week