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Evaluation
Symposia

Assessment of Complex Dissociation: Implications for Treatment, Research and Forensics

Saturday, March 15, 2025
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM US Eastern Time
Location: Berkeley

Trauma-spectrum and dissociative disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dissociative identity disorder (DID), are receiving growing attention due to high rates of exposure to potentially traumatic events worldwide in the context of vast perpetration and violation of human rights, conflict, violence, and war leading to displacement and increased exposure to danger, and the aftermath of a global pandemic to name a few examples. And – there are growing efforts to identify the prevalence of childhood abuse and maltreatment and destigmatize the sequelae of trauma exposure. The mental health system has been inundated and overwhelmed by the volume of requests for assessment and treatment. A growing body of empirical evidence supports a number of effective assessment tools and treatment protocols for PTSD, DID and other trauma-spectrum disorders, but there is a paucity of trained, experienced clinicians to employ them, leaving even the few who are even able to access mental health services undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and therefore untreated. And, even trained clinicians have limited exposure to using assessment tools with racially and culturally diverse populations. Here we present a systematic overview of methods for assessing trauma-related dissociation, the utility of gold standard assessment tools with a sample of women exposed to severe childhood abuse, and evaluation of asylum seekers exposed to violence and persecution with a discussion of the challenges and implications for research, clinical, and forensic settings.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session participants will be able to:
  • Identify current methods for assessing trauma-related dissociation
  • Describe the challenges to the utility of current assessment tools
  • Describe nuances and implications of forensic evaluation of trauma and dissociation
  • Evaluate and discuss strengths and relative weaknesses of commonly used assessment tools
  • Discuss the challenges and nuances of assessment with racially-diverse, culturally-diverse, immigrant, and other vulnerable populations

Presentations:

  • 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM US Eastern Time
    Utility Analysis of Gold-standard Assessment Tools for Trauma-related Dissociation

    Matthew Robinson, PhD (he/him/his) – McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School

  • 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM US Eastern Time
    Assessing Trauma and Dissociation During Documentation of Human Rights Violations

    Kim Baranowski, PhD (she/her/hers) – McLean Trauma Continuum of Care at Hill Center

  • 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM US Eastern Time
    Asked and Answered: The Most Common Questions Clinicians Ask About Assessing Trauma-related Dissociation

    Bethany Brand, PhD (she/her/hers) – Towson University

  • 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM US Eastern Time
    Utility Analysis of Gold-standard Assessment Tools for Trauma-related Dissociation

    Cori A. Palermo, MA (she/her/hers) – McLean Hospital