Grounding Techniques Menu

Psychologists use the term ‘dissociation’ to describe a range of unusual experiences, often associated with trauma. Within psychological literature, dissociation has encompassed:

• Flashbacks and intrusive unwanted memories.
• Intrusive thoughts and feelings.
• Depersonalization and derealization.
• Identity confusion.
• Unexplained medical symptoms.
• Loss of control.
• Identity alteration and multiple identities.
• Reduced awareness of one’s surroundings.
• Trances.

Kennerley (2009) proposed a clinically useful distinction between different types of dissociation in a model which combined both categorical and continuum approaches, and which was based upon a 2005 model (Holmes et al., 2005). Categories of the model are described below, with the caveat that “each of these presentations can be experienced along a spectrum of severity from non-pathological to extremely dysfunctional”:

• Detachment can also be described as ‘tuning out’. Examples include depersonalization and derealization, where people describe feeing ‘cut off’ from the world, or from themselves. Detachment often occurs peri-traumatically and may lead to reduced recollection of certain aspects of the trauma.
• Compartmentalization is described as

“Do you ever have any experiences where you have unwanted memories, ‘space out’, or feel detached or disconnected from what is going on? The term for anything that takes your attention away from the present moment is ‘dissociation’. We all do it from time to time – daydreaming or concentrating hard are both types of dissociation which can feel quite nice – but when dissociation is unpleasant or takes you to places where you don’t want to go, we can do something about it.

One way of thinking about dissociation is that it is a survival mechanism. It kicks in when you aren’t physically able to escape a situation – your mind may ‘escape’ by detaching from the experience. Once that has happened during a traumatic experience, it is as if your mind has found out how to do it, and you might notice that you dissociate at other times too

• Blake-White, J., & Kline, C. M. (1985). Treating the dissociative process in adult victims of childhood incest. Social Casework, 66(7), 394-402.
• de Tord, P., & Bräuninger, I. (2015). Grounding: Theoretical application and practice in dance movement therapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 43, 16-22.
• Ehlers, A., & Clark, D. M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behaviour research and therapy, 38(4), 319-345.
• Ehlers, A., Hackmann, A., & Michael, T. (2004). Intrusive re‐experiencing in post‐traumatic stress disorder: Phenomenology, theory, and therapy. Memory, 12(4), 403-415.
• Fisher, J. (1999). The work of stabilization in trauma treatment. Trauma Center Lecture Series, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Herman J. L. Trauma and recovery. 1992; New York: Basic Books.
• Holmes, E. A., Brown, R. J., Mansell, W., Fearon, R. P., Hunter, E. C., Frasquilho, F., & Oakley, D. A. (2005). Are there two qualitatively distinct forms of dissociation? A review and some clinical implications. Clinical psychology review,