What type of training has the professional had in dissociation?
A careful and thorough assessment and, if recommended, therapy for your child will be important. The therapist should help you to: • Understand dissociation, recognize when it is happening, and learn how to talk with your child at those times. • Develop a greater sense of safety in the home. • Identify the triggers that start your child’s dissociative responses and how to decrease these triggers. A trigger is something in the child’s present experience that is similar in some way to the situation at the time of the trauma (for example, cigarette smoke if the abuser smoked or smelling alcohol if the abuser used alcohol). Triggers restart the child’s fear and the child is likely to respond to them just as she did when the actual trauma happened. • Become aware of the various aspects or parts of your child. • Establish a word or gesture that can help you reorient your child when dissociation starts to happen. • Learn specific child-management techniques that can help your child assume res
