Translating 50 Personalities into 5 Modes: Schema Therapy for Dissociative Identity Disorder
This presentation outlines a treatment model for dissociative identity disorder (DID) developed by Ida Shaw and Joan Farrell. The approach utilizes schema therapy (ST) to consolidate multiple dissociative parts into a smaller number of modes, aiming to make treatment more manageable for both clients and therapists and potentially shorten its duration. DID can involve a complex array of twenty to one hundred dissociative “parts” or “personalities,” each with unique memories, emotions, and coping mechanisms. Schema therapy provides a framework for conceptualizing these parts as schema modes. Using the therapeutic alliance, experiential techniques, and skills development, clients are guided to identify, validate, and integrate their various internal voices into a limited number of schema modes. ST for DID seeks to organize these parts into the three types of schema modes: child (strong emotion), coping (the survival strategies fight, flight, or freeze), critic (cognition), and to develop the Healthy modes. This structure is intended to reduce internal confusion and promote continuity. When arranged into these categories, transdiagnostic schema therapy treatment proceeds similarly to approaches for other trauma survivors. As modes heal, they are less frequently triggered, contributing to greater stability. Enhanced access to the Healthy Adult mode is expected to help clients address needs in balanced ways, facilitating further improvement. This ST model for DID was initially developed and pilot tested in an inpatient program and was subsequently evaluated in a two-year case series involving weekly sessions, with positive clinical results. This is a significant decrease in treatment compared to the typical 10 plus years of psychodynamic psychotherapy.
This presentation will give you a more effective way to conceptualize and treat your clients with DID. Ida Shaw is an experienced ST trainer and supervisor whose training, supervision and three innovative books have assisted thousands of therapists treat their most challenging clients more successfully.
Learning objectives
· Participants will be able to apply the mode approach to conceptualize DID clients.
· Participants will be able to use schema therapy mode interventions adapted for DID.
Speaker
Ida ShawClick for moreIda A. Shaw, M.A., is an International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) Certified Supervisor-Trainer specializing in Individual, Child-Adolescent, and Group Schema Therapy (ST). She currently serves as co-director of the Schema Therapy Institute Midwest in Cleveland. She co-developed Group Schema Therapy with Joan Farrell and was instrumental in the development of Child-Adolescent Schema Therapy. In recognition of her significant contributions to schema therapy, Ida Shaw was elected as an Honorary Lifetime Member of the ISST in 2020. For a decade, she held the position of Training Director at the Center for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Treatment & Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Her leadership extended to major international schema therapy trials, including supervising and training participants in a five-country study involving 495 patients focused on Group Schema Therapy for borderline personality disorder, as well as an experimental case series for dissociative identity disorder (DID). Ida Shaw has authored three influential books on schema therapy: Group Schema Therapy for BPD (Wiley, 2012), The Schema Therapy Clinician’s Guide (Wiley, 2014), and Experiencing Schema Therapy from the Inside Out: A Self-Practice/Self-Reflection Workbook (Guilford Press, 2018). Her bibliography also includes numerous book chapters and journal articles. She is widely recognized for her creativity and expertise in developing experiential interventions, which have been instrumental in the advancement of Group and Child-Adolescent Schema Therapy. Ida Shaw served as Chair of the Child-Adolescent Schema Therapy Certification Committee and was a member of the Training & Certification Advisory Board of ISST for many years, further shaping the field through her dedication and service
