Professional treatment & getting help

What treatment can involve

There is no single protocol that fits everyone. Care is usually built around the person's current life and current safety, and commonly includes some combination of:

• Trauma-informed psychotherapy with a clinician experienced in dissociation.
• Stabilisation — establishing safety, sleep, routine and support before anything else.
• Grounding and orientation skills used deliberately and practised regularly.
• Emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills.
• Improving everyday functioning: work, study, relationships, self-care, finances.
• Approaching traumatic material carefully, gradually, and only when there is enough stability to do it safely — and sometimes not at all.
• Improving internal communication and cooperation around dissociative experiences.
• Coordinating with other care where relevant, such as a GP or psychiatrist for co-occurring conditions.

Healing does not have to mean erasing parts of someone's experience or forcing a particular identity outcome. Good treatment aims at safety, function, and a life the person actually wants to live — not at making someone into a shape that suits other people.

When to get additional help

Professional assistance may be particularly important when dissociation causes:

• Dangerous memory gaps — for example around driving, cooking, childcare, or medication.
• Getting lost, or coming back to awareness somewhere unfamiliar.
• Being unable to complete normal responsibilities.
• Severe distress.
• Significant disruption to relationships.
• Substance misuse.
• Unsafe behaviour of any kind.
• Self-harm.
• Suicidal thoughts.
• Difficulty distinguishing present circumstances from traumatic experiences.

You do not need to wait until things reach any of these points. Difficulty is enough of a reason on its own.

Emergency and crisis help