In the time of covid all of us are facing a shared awareness of mortality and human fragility. Each day moral decisions are made over steps towards or away from the fear of contamination and death. With adults losing money, health and hope, how does this impinge on children? How does this environment affect children who were already showing signs of hurt? What new problems does it evoke? And for children who did not previously experience major problems, how quickly do they fall into this negative vortex? Having a trauma-informed way of thinking and working is a relational way that helps to reduce the toxic impact of blame and shame. It also is applied to all of us as wounded healers sharing this uncertain time.
Dr Valerie Sinason is a poet, writer, retired child psychotherapist, and adult psychoanalyst. She helped to pioneer the field of disability psychotherapy and serves as founding President of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability. She is also the founder and Patron of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London and has worked extensively with severely traumatised individuals suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Previously, Dr Sinason worked as a Consultant Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, the Portman Clinic, the Anna Freud Centre, and St. George’s Hospital Medical School in the University of London.
Her many books include Mental Handicap and the Human Condition: New Approaches from the Tavistock, now in its second edition.
Publications include:
The Truth about Trauma and Dissociation: Everything You Didn't Want to Know and Were Afraid to Ask
Mental Handicap and the Human Condition: An Analytic Approach to Intellectual Disability
Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder