Dissociation Made Simple: 2 Day Workshop Perth
Training Details
Dates: Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th July, 2025
Time: 9am to 5pm each day
Location: Fremantle Sailing Club, 151 Marine Terrace Fremantle, Perth, WA, 6160
Training Pre-Requisites: The training is suitable for any mental health professional and although having EMDR training is useful, it is not required.
Super Early Bird: $620 – Ends December 31st
Limited capacity for the workshop.
Dissociation is a normal part of the human experience, however in clinical practice there are still myths, fears, and anxieties regarding working with dissociation in its various forms. In this two-day workshop, you will learn from one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of dissociation, blending their lived and clinical experience to provide you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to work with dissociation in your practice. Dr. Jamie Marich, is an EMDRIA-approved EMDR trainer based in the United States. She is the founder and director of The Institute for Creative Mindfulness, and is publicly out as a woman living and thriving with a clinically significant dissociative disorder. She began her quest to educate other clinicians in this more person-centered way from a place of concern that existing approaches and models of teaching dissociation run the risk of promoting more fear and disconnection from the humanity required to effectively work with dissociation.
In this workshop you will learn to be able to skilfully understand various forms of dissociation based on learning from lived experience, understand the nuances and clinical decision points regarding assessment processes, the importance of grounding in creative and client centered ways, and how to adjust and titrate trauma focused modalities such as EMDR when working with dissociative individuals. Participants are also challenged to expand their internal knowledge of conceptualizing and healing dissociation within a trauma-focused lens for clinical practice by considering their own relationship with dissociative behaviours and responses, and through reflecting on societal and mental health perspectives, attitudes, and frameworks towards dissociation.
This exploration and development of skills is guided by Dr Jamie’s lived experience and work as a trauma specialist, expressive arts therapist and author. The significant advantage of this training is learning from Jamie’s lived experience, providing greater insight and understanding of the dissociative mind and giving the opportunity to ask and learn everything you have wanted to know but were afraid to ask. She also welcomes you to come prepared to do your own work and introspection as this is the key to being able to offer high quality case conceptualization and treatment using the EMDR approach to psychotherapy, in harmony with other available therapeutic tools.
After completing this two-day training, you will be able to:
- Recognize and describe dissociative responses and their various manifestations in the human experience, learning from Jamie’s lived and professional experiences
- Articulate the subtle differences between how various forms of dissociation show up in your own life and in the experiences of others, ultimately translating this new understanding into effectively empowering your clients
- Utilize the adaptive information processing (AIP) model of EMDR Therapy to better understand dissociation and how it shows up in the human experience
- Implement various tools and models that are available for identifying dissociative experiences and working with parts, although the ultimate focus will be on enhancing your competencies in identification and conceptualization by better understanding your own dissociative profile and experiences on the dissociative continuum.
- Conceptualize in an advanced way how to work with clinically significant dissociation, including Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), within the EMDR approach to psychotherapy and implement these new strategies to build a more effective clinical practice (working with clients across their life experiences). This competency also addresses your ability to determine client preparedness for reprocessing.
- Deliver the 8 Phases of EMDR Therapy in a manner that both honors the original intentions of the standard protocol whilst making necessary modifications for addressing dissociation and working with clients who have dissociative disorders
- Address the interplays between dissociation and neurodivergence and adapt EMDR Therapy accordingly
- Examine the themes and issues in your life that are keeping you stuck through a lens of dissociation and parts, developing a plan for addressing your own work and committing to a plan for life-long growth and healing. This competency also includes examining how our own work can intersect with clinical presentations, impacting issues around transference and countertransference.
- Contextualize the importance of learning from lived experience and how to advocate for people with dissociative experiences of life in subtle and direct ways within your work setting, the mental health/addiction field, and society in general.
About the Presenter:
Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they/we) began her career as a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 2000-2003, primarily teaching English and music. Jamie travels internationally teaching on topics related to trauma, EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness, and yoga, while maintaining a private practice and online education operations in her home base of Akron, OH. Marich is the founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness approach to expressive arts therapy.
Marich is the author of EMDR Made Simple: 4 Approaches for Using EMDR with Every Client (2011), Trauma and the Twelve Steps: A Complete Guide for Recovery Enhancement (2012), Creative Mindfulness (2013), Trauma Made Simple: Competencies in Assessment, Treatment, and Working with Survivors, Dancing Mindfulness: A Creative Path to Healing and Transformation (2015), and Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery (2019). Marich co-authored EMDR Therapy & Mindfulness for Trauma-Focused Care along with colleague Dr. Stephen Dansiger in 2018, and their new book with Springer Publishing Healing Addiction with EMDR Therapy: A Trauma-Focused Guide released in 2021. North Atlantic Books published a revised and expanded edition of Trauma and the 12 Steps in the Summer of 2020, and they released The Healing Power of Jiu-Jitsu: A Guide to Transforming Trauma and Facilitating Recovery in 2022.
Her latest release with North Atlantic Book, Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Life came out in January 2023. She has three more projects in the works with North Atlantic Books, including her personal memoir about surviving spiritual abuse called You Lied to Me About God which has just been released.
The New York Times featured Marich’s writing and work on Dancing Mindfulness in 2017 and 2020. NALGAP: The Association of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies awarded Jamie with their esteemed President’s Award in 2015 for her work as an LGBT advocate. The EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) granted Jamie the 2019 Advocacy in EMDR Award for her using her public platform in media and in the addiction field to advance awareness about EMDR therapy and to reduce stigma around mental health. The Huffington Post published her personal story of being out as a clinical professional with a dissociative disorder in May 2023.
Please reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions.