Dear NESTTD Members and Supporters:

Now that I’ve gotten over my shock that this job doesn’t come with ghost writers, I thought I’d introduce myself in this first presidential letter by writing about my path to NESTTD and how this organization has shaped my development as a clinician. 

In 1988, four years after I got my master’s, I was working in an agency.  Because of my reputation of working with so-called “multi-problemed clients,” I inherited a MPD (as it was then known) client from a therapist who went on maternity leave, never to return.  Although the woman had been in treatment for several years, no one knew anything about MPD.  The only advice came from the psychiatrist who’d heard it was bad to encourage “personalities” by talking to them.  Armed with this advice, I was happy to hear that Mt. Auburn Hospital was having a grand rounds on MPD presented by someone called Jim Chu.  It was very interesting and afterward, Jim told me about NESTTD, then known as the New England Society for the Study of MPD. 

At that time, meetings were held in the basement of an agency in Natick, and attending had a little bit of a Twilight Zone feel.  People there spoke about things many other therapists didn’t talk about, and worked with people many other therapists avoided and transferred. 

I don’t remember the content of the first few meetings, but they were good enough to keep me coming back.  I never considered skipping until I got an announcement that the next meeting would be what sounded like a totally bogus presentation by Daniel Brown on hypnosis and the treatment of people with PTSD.  Fortunately, this was to be followed by one on kids, which at least sounded interesting.  In spite of my incredibly low expectations, I decided to go on time and sit through the hocus pocus guy and, of course, found that it was exactly what I needed, and my life as a therapist changed!  In a scant hour and a half, Dan presented the three phases of Trauma Treatment, completely nixing all I’d learned in grad school and from supervisors about the treatment of trauma (which was either to sit back and wait until they started talking, or the fast track to the hospital mode:  get them to talk as much as possible and feel the feelings).  Soon after, I took Dan’s 3-day workshop. I told my supervisor about it, who immediately forbid me to use hypnosis, thus inspiring the start of my private practice. 

The training I began with Dan was invaluable.  It was an education on how to treat a person with PTSD, attention to language both in and out of trance, and the dynamics of memory.  With that and the material I was learning at NESSMPD meetings, I found my work with everyone immediately improved whether they had overt trauma histories or not. 

Nothing’s perfect, and this group hasn’t been perfect either, but, for every poor presentation, there have been ones that have provided me knowledge and direction invaluable to my development into a competent therapist.  NESTTD also provided support to combat my insecurity when therapists from various disciplines denied the existence of dissociative disorders.  Meetings that have stood out included one about another bogus sounding treatment called EMDR (which, of course, I now use extensively), one in which Marlene Steinberg talked about the development and use of the SCID-D, and another about differentiating real MPD from someone with factitious disorder. Really, there have been many.

And then there’re the name changes to consider:  NESSMPD gave way to NESSD (D as in Dissociation) when MPD became DID, and now we have NESTTD which reflects the growing awareness of the partnership of Trauma and Dissociation, making the scope of the society both more precise and comprehensive.  This is a group that doesn’t stand still.

NESTTD has a lot to offer, and continues to grow, both in membership and scope. For instance, we are increasing outreach to agencies serving low-income populations by providing pro bono trainings designed to increase awareness of dissociation and the treatment of complex PTSD.  Within NESTTD we’ve just begun experimenting with providing Master Classes for those of us with extensive experience, making use of experts who come through Boston.  And of course the high quality quarterly meetings continue to add to all of our skills and development, as well as providing an opportunity to be connected to a source of networking and support. 

It took me several days to decide to take on the commitment of being the President of this organization!  Then I began to think about just how much of my professional development has stemmed directly from NESTTD presentations, in addition to the many connections I’ve made through it to other clinicians, and the readings and trainings to which I might not have otherwise been exposed.  My concerns vanished and I’m looking forward to the next two years.

Sincerely,

president@nesttd.org