Professor Emerita Towson University Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Abstract Few mental health professionals received structured, formal mental health training about assessing trauma-related dissociation. Accurate assessment of clients’ difficulties, disorders, and strengths is essential to making correct differential diagnoses and individualizing treatment to fit clients’ needs, making it essential that clinicians become informed about the assessment of dissociation. Thus, most clinicians need to seek training about accurately assessing dissociation and differentiating it from disorders that are often confused with dissociative disorders, particularly dissociative identity disorder. Dr. Brand has conducted many studies about the accurate assessment of dissociation and is a leader in the trauma field for devising methods for distinguishing genuine dissociative disorders from other conditions as well as simulated or malingered “dissociative” presentations. She will discuss the most common questions raised by clinicians about assessing dissociation and use empirical data as well as her three decades of experience as a clinician, researcher, and forensic expert to answer these important questions. Dr. Brand will describe her approach to conducting evidence-informed assessments of dissociation as described in her just published book, The Concise Guide to the Assessment and Treatment of Trauma-Related Dissociation.
