Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity

Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity: Working on Identity and Selves.
Editor: Valerie Sinason. 
Routledge. 2012.
​ISBN: 9780415554251.
 
Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity is an edited collection by Valerie Sinason that offers primarily psychoanalytic perspectives on dissociation, especially dissociative identity disorder, with a strong clinical and survivor-informed emphasis. It brings together contributors from both Europe and North America, so you get a mix of British and international voices, many already prominent in the trauma/dissociation field.
 
The volume aims to deepen understanding of the concept of dissociation and the ongoing theoretical and clinical confusion around it; Dissociative Identity Disorder as one end of a broader dissociative spectrum, discussed from a psychoanalytic standpoint rather than a purely descriptive-diagnostic one; and the nature of “selves,” identity, and multiplicity, including how multiple self-states are formed and maintained in the aftermath of chronic trauma.
 
Valerie Sinason is a British poet, writer, child psychotherapist, and adult psychoanalyst renowned for her pioneering work in disability psychotherapy and trauma/dissociation studies. She began at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where from 1987 to 1999 she served as Consultant Child Psychotherapist and ran a workshop on intellectual disability for 20 years, developing psychoanalytic approaches for people with learning disabilities.
Sinason also consulted at the Anna Freud Centre, Portman Clinic (1994–1997), and St George’s Hospital Medical School (1994–2006), emphasizing emotional responses over cognitive limits in therapy. In 1992, she co-founded the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability. She founded the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in 1998, specializing in dissociative identity disorder and severe trauma, integrating psychoanalysis with survivor perspectives.
Recognition and Output. Sinason received the ISSTD Lifetime Achievement Award (2016), Fellowship (2017), and Board election (2019).