In some ways, ongoing incest during adulthood constitutes the last frontier in our awareness of extreme and enduring trauma. It has existed as something referred to occasionally in clinical anecdotes, and any form of systematic study of this form of trauma has come very late. That delay suggests an extension of society's reluctance to accept the reality of the widespread nature of incest itself. Extreme incestuous abuse, though published in the popular press is often underreported. According to research (Middleton, 2013), one in eight adults with a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder were in a situation where they were incestuously abused as adults. Because it is under-reported, practitioners may suddenly find themselves caught unaware when a client trusts them enough to disclose that abuse. Their disclosure will have clinical implications for such practitioners.
This webinar positions ongoing incest during adulthood within the spectrum of extreme trauma and highlights the reality that almost inevitably it also encompasses, some variant of organised abuse. Victims of ongoing incestuous abuse that extends into their adult years, inevitably satisfy diagnostic criteria for dissociative identity disorder (usually in its more extreme forms). In this webinar, Prof Warwick Middleton examines the phenomenology and abuse profiles of such victims, exploring how therapists can work with such challenging clinical cases.
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Video: Beyond Death: Incest that continues into adult life
PPT Slides: Beyond Death: Incest that continues into adult life.
Assessment Component
Professor Middleton holds appointments as Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Queensland, as well as Adjunct Professor - at the School of Public Health, La Trobe University; School of Behavioral, Cognitive & Social Sciences, University of New England; and, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury. He has made substantial and ongoing contributions to the bereavement and trauma literatures, and was with Dr Jeremy Butler author of the first published series in the Australian scientific literature detailing the abuse histories and clinical phenomenology of patients fulfilling diagnostic criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder. Professor Middleton chairs The Cannan Institute. He is a Past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). Widely published, he is currently the joint editor, with Martin Dorahy, of, Contemporary Perspectives on the Seduction Theory and Psychoanalysis: Revisiting Masson’s ‘The Assault on Truth’ (Routledge), which is due for publication in 2024. Prof Warwick Middletone is the first researcher to ever do systematic research into ongoing incestuous abuse during adulthood.
