Recognized for her contributions

Times Reporter    

 

Lyalta resident Christine Forner has been a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) since 2008 and was recently awarded a fellowship for outstanding service to the field of dissociation and the ISSTD. 

Forner, who holds a BA, BSW, MSW, and is a Registered Social Worker, works out of Calgary. She specializes in EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Psychotherapeutic Meditation techniques and Neurofeedback. 

“It’s really an acknowledgement from my peers that the work that I have done for the society and for the field is worthy of note,” said Forner.

Forner believes the work she has done for past few years for the society are what prompted her colleagues to see her presented with the award. She teaches a Dissociation 101 introductory class for the annual conference. On top of being on the conference committee, a board member and treasurer, Forner is also the ISSTD Chair of the Student and Emerging Professional Committee.

“It’s an aging society and when I started being involved, about four years ago I started going to the meetings and the business meetings, I really saw that there was not a lot of younger people and they weren’t really doing much to reach out to a younger population. So I kept bugging them and I started the ‘Student and Emerging Professional Committee,’” said Forner. 

She began reaching out to people, both locally and globally, to help them recognize the society is there for them, the support and training are there and the education and contacts are there too. She was asked to be on the board a year later and treasurer a year after that. 

The committee that she created is threefold. It is a place for emerging professionals to meet to really begin to take on leadership or governing roles within the society. It is also a place where they try to help expand awareness of the issues of trauma and dissociation as well as expand training opportunities. There are also connections made with senior members who can, in a sense, mentor, or at least answer a few questions from the professionals emerging into the field. 

Forner said the world of dissociation is a very specialized area of mental health that isn’t well known; there are a lot of myths, lack of understanding and misinformation about what it is. When traumatized or in a high stress situation people often go into flight, fight or freeze mode. When people move into freeze the front brain, the logical, reasoning one goes offline and they move into survival tactics. 

Freeze happens more with kids, because they often can’t flee or fight, and if there is not a compassionate object ive observer who can help bring them to a safe place, then the dissociation can stay and the ability to be mindful and objective hasn’t happened. 

Mindfulness is really important in the healing process, that ability to be objective to your own experiences or somebody else’s experiences is really important. Dissociation and mindfulness are rival brain activities and dissociation always wins because it’s a lower survival, stronger brain activity. 

“My research and the work that I do is really examining this issue of mindfulness and dissociation and how to help people who dissociate become mindful,” said Forner. 

To find out more about Forner and to learn more about the services she offers go to www.associatedcounselling.ca.