"Greg Nooney is a true ally to people with dissociative identities and this book shows that Greg has done the most important study of all in developing his clinical DID specialty---listening to his clients and to those with lived experience. An Introductory Clinical Guide to Dissociative Identity Disorder is an excellent resource for therapists who are new to working with dissociative identities and for those who need guided structure to assist their clinical conceptualization. While every client or system with dissociative identities is unique and bringing concepts together into a single manual or resource is next to impossible, Greg does the closest thing possible with great competence in this book. His "Best Practices" structured infographic sets a great tone for the material that he offers in the book, and the voice that comes through shows his wisdom and experience."
Jamie+ Marich, Ph.D., LPCC-S, REAT
Author of Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Daily Life and Trauma and the 12 Steps: An Inclusive Guide for Recovery Enhancement
Founder and CEO, The Institute for Creative Mindfulness
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“In this brief, engaging, and very very clearly written book, Greg Nooney shares the knowledge he has gained through years and years of direct experience in working with people who experience themselves as multiple, separate, identities--people who have developed dissociation as a survival skill in the face of circumstances that have threatened their very existence. It is not easy to write a "how to" book that avoids rigid recipes while still being useful in its guidance, but Nooney has done it. He keeps the people seeking help--their values, their specific circumstances, their longings, and their struggles--at the center, while offering useful advice for what to expect, what to avoid, and how to create an accepting, safe-enough, and hopeful space for healing.”
Gene Combs,
Co-director, Evanston Family Therapy Center
Author of Narrative Therapy: the social construction of preferred realities.
Available from NASW Press
New: you can now purchase the book, read it, take a test and earn 7.5 CEUs.
What inspired this book?
I have worked in community mental health centers for most of my 35+ years as a social worker/therapist, and have discovered that an overwhelming number of those clients have complex childhood trauma and attachment wounds. Many experience life-disruptive dissociation and meet criteria for DID. I am passionate about dispelling myths about this condition which are rampant in the media, in the dominant culture, and unfortunately in many cases, within the professional mental health community itself. Unless the dissociative experiences of these clients are acknowledged, therapeutic treatments are unlikely to be successful.
What audience may benefit from the book? Although there are excellent resources available describing successful treatment modalities for clients with DID, these resources are often inaccessible to social workers and other front line mental health workers who are overworked, underpaid, under-trained, under-supervised, and are subject to vicarious traumatization. My slim 200-page book, besides offering a comprehensive treatment method for working with clients with DID, offers a coherent summary of what we currently know about the effects of trauma, attachment wounds, and memory. This will be helpful to anyone being trained to work directly with clients in need, including social work students and others studying to be therapists, chemical dependency counselors, school counselors and those pursuing other forms of counseling. In addition, I believe that friends and family members of clients with DID will find the book enlightening.
Why is DID often under-diagnosed? Despite ample evidence to the contrary, there remains a deeply entrenched belief that DID is a rare condition. Consequently, when doing assessments, clinicians do not ask the right questions. Due to the frequency of co-occurring disorders among clients with DID, it is often easier to focus on those conditions than to face the fears that erupt when acknowledging the suffering of early complex trauma and the anxieties often produced when encountering someone with multiple identities. It is also true that clients with DID are understandably reluctant to reveal the reality of their situation unless they feel confident that they will be acknowledged and respected.
What are the key takeaways from the book?
· The fragmentation experienced by clients with DID is a result of an elaborately creative process to successfully survive serious childhood trauma.
· If you’ve known one person with DID, then you’ve known one person with DID. Clients with DID are as different from one another as are clients with other diagnoses.
· You will never be bored in working with a client with DID.
· It is a moral imperative for therapists working with clients with DID to be steadfast in working on their own past trauma issues, and to be dedicated to ongoing self-care.
· It is an honor to be trusted by a client with DID.
· Healing is possible for clients with DID.
· Persons with DID may be your neighbors, co-workers or family members.
New: “Dissociative Identity Disorder” article published in Encyclopedia of Social Work
DreamWalking My Mother
I wrote this spiritual tale shortly after my mother’s death in 2009. It is available for purchase through Amazon.
Professional Articles
"The Effect of Passive-Infrared Hemoencephalography (pIR HEG) on Athlete’s Performance" by Laura Barry and Gregory L. Nooney: 12/07/2018
Abstract
This single case study explores the effects of a specific form of biofeedback on sports enhancement. Three college athletes from three different sports (baseball, volleyball, and basketball) were each subjected to five weekly sessions of passive infrared hemoencephalography (pIR HEG) from a licensed psychotherapist who had been trained in this form of biofeedback. Sports data were collected prior to the session, during the sessions, and after the sessions. In addition, card sorting and thermal imaging were done by the therapist during each of the five brain-training sessions. The results were mixed. The baseball and volleyball players demonstrated modest gains in their specific sports measures and in the card-sorting process, whereas the basketball player’s measures were flat. The thermal imaging was also inconclusive. However, two out of three subjects reported subjective improvements in focus and concentration on the field and in their daily lives. In addition, two of the subjects reported improvements in their rate and intensity of headaches, which was not a specific goal of the treatment, but one which is routinely seen from pIR HEG treatment. There are significant limitations to this study that make it impossible to generalize. Further studies with longer treatment times and larger numbers of subjects are recommended.
View article — DOI: https://doi.org/10.15540/nr.5.4.129
Copyright: © 2018. Barry and Nooney. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY).
"Intuition: The Bay Leaf of the Therapeutic Stew" by Gregory L. Nooney: January 2008
Abstract
Definitions of intuition are explored and compared with various spiritual understandings. An attempt is made at integration, drawing from Wilbur’s integral spirituality, certain Abrahamic mystics, and Baylor’s U-shaped model of intuition. Potential risks of relying on intuition are discussed, and ways of testing it are explored, including the process of differentiating it from impulses. Specific clinical examples are given to illustrate this work. Suggestions are given to assist clinicians and clients to more readily acknowledge and utilize intuition. This allows intuition, like the flavor of the bay leaf, to permeate their lives and move them a little closer to their own dreams and preferences. The goal of integrating spiritual experiences into the secular setting of the consulting room is achieved.
View online:
http://www.spiritualityandsocialwork.ca/uploads/2/5/8/0/25806130/gregnooney-intuition-thebayleafofthetherapeuticstew.pdf
Copyright: © 2008. Gregory L. Nooney
Flash Fiction =>
Hospice
Playing Catch
Euthanasia
Burnout
Precious Package
Stilettos
[Trigger warning] The piece “Stilettos” is published in the Nonbinary Review magazine, Issue #32