In Dialogue: Ida Shaw with Joan Farrell. Where the Real Conversation Begins.

For forty years, Ida Shaw has been one of the field’s most trusted clinicians for the cases other therapists refer out.

Dissociative Identity Disorder. Severe trauma. Borderline personality disorder. Ida stayed when others didn’t. She co-authored three books with Joan Farrell that have shaped how clinicians approach these presentations. She trained therapists across more than twenty countries. She helped build the schema therapy treatment models that finally gave the field something to work with.

On May 13, Joan joined her for a live conversation about the DID work Ida presented at the December symposium.

The recording is available to active JYSTA members on the Mighty platform in the coming days.

About the In Dialogue Series

In Dialogue brings a senior schema therapy presenter into extended conversation with a colleague who knows their work intimately. Where the recorded symposium session establishes the framework, the live exchange goes deeper. The questions a trusted colleague can ask. The clinical instincts that don’t make it into formal teaching. The kind of exchange that only happens when two clinicians with shared history sit down to talk.

For this launch event, Joan Farrell, JYSTA President-Elect and Ida’s longtime collaborator, facilitates the conversation.

About Ida’s Symposium Presentation

This presentation outlines a treatment model for dissociative identity disorder (DID) developed by Ida Shaw and Joan Farrell. The approach utilizes schema therapy (ST) to consolidate multiple dissociative parts into a smaller number of modes, aiming to make treatment more manageable for both clients and therapists and potentially shorten its duration.

DID can involve a complex array of twenty to one hundred dissociative parts or personalities, each with unique memories, emotions, and coping mechanisms. Schema therapy provides a framework for conceptualizing these parts as schema modes. Using the therapeutic alliance, experiential techniques, and skills development, clients are guided to identify, validate, and integrate their various internal voices into a limited number of schema modes.

ST for DID seeks to organize these parts into the three types of schema modes: child (strong emotion), coping (the survival strategies of fight, flight, or freeze), critic (cognition), and to develop the Healthy modes. This structure is intended to reduce internal confusion and promote continuity. When arranged into these categories, transdiagnostic schema therapy treatment proceeds similarly to approaches for other trauma survivors. As modes heal, they are less frequently triggered, contributing to greater stability. Enhanced access to the Healthy Adult mode is expected to help clients address needs in balanced ways, facilitating further improvement.

This ST model for DID was initially developed and pilot tested in an inpatient program and was subsequently evaluated in a two-year case series involving weekly sessions, with positive clinical results. This is a significant decrease in treatment compared to the typical ten-plus years of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

This presentation will give you a more effective way to conceptualize and treat your clients with DID. Ida Shaw is an experienced ST trainer and supervisor whose training, supervision, and three innovative books have assisted thousands of therapists in treating their most challenging clients more successfully.

How This Live Conversation Works

You have already watched Ida present the model. You have seen how the framework gets built on a slide deck and walked through with case examples.

What you have not seen is what happens when Joan sits down with her to draw out what didn’t make it into the formal presentation. The clinical instincts behind the slides. The questions only a longtime collaborator can ask. What gets revealed when two clinicians who have worked together for four decades move from teaching mode into open conversation.

That is what In Dialogue is for.

How to Access the Recording

The recording of this session is available to active JYSTA members on the Mighty platform in the coming days.