S4E52 | “Jon Uhler LPC - DID Early Treatment Stages: Awareness & Cooperation of the Internal System”
What’s up you guys? Welcome to ‘The Imagination’! I’m your host, Emma, and I am thrilled to have back on - our feature presenter for our Tuesday Night weekly podcast event: Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider, Licensed Professional Counselor, Founder of Survivor Support, Podcast host of own podcast and channel @JonKUhlerLPC and @UnmaskingTheTransMovement on YouTube, father of 3, husband to his high school sweetheart, survivor advocate, professional knapsack remover, and someone I’m grateful to have on the battlefield with us: Jon Uhler.
In case you are new here or missed Jon’s briefing on his background on the first episode we did together, here is a short recap of Jon’s many accolades and credentials: Jon’s work began over 30 years ago and the evolution of his career path is nothing short of astonishing. His education includes attending Epic Bible College, Biola University, Talbot School of Theology, and California State University and Fullerton. He’s worked in both clinical and administrative capacities, outpatient and hospital settings, intensive day treatment settings, residential treatment programs, and in secure (locked) facilities - including over 11 years on Psychology Staff within the Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections where he’s logged more clinical contact hours within Solitary Confinement than any Psych Staff in the entire US. Prior to his work with incarcerated men, he spent years working with sexual abuse Survivors, and treating Severely Emotionally Disturbed adolescents in group homes and within the largest intensive psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility for troubled youth west of the MIssissippi.
If you’ve been following along, I know you have found so much value in this weekly series we are doing with Jon and the diversity of topics we are discussing. This series is to serve as a tool for survivors, advocates and therapists to get an insider view and perspective on what to expect going to therapy if you are a survivor as well as what to expect if you are the therapist or helper. We have covered everything from triggers to journaling to handlers to signs that you have DID and so much more. And lately over the course of the last few episodes, we have been breaking down piece by piece and part by part a survivor’s dissociative system and all of it’s parts. To help better our understanding of these complex systems, Jon constructed a graphic for us consisting - quite literally - of moving parts and we’ve been having fun reverse-engineering the system and breaking it down into palatable bites for you all to be able to step into a survivor’s shoes if you are not a survivor as well as to have a better understanding of your system if you’re a survivor who is new to understanding your system. This has been tremendously helpful for me personally and I’ve received the same feedback from many of you. Last week if you remember, I even role-played with Jon and with his help, I attempted to imagine I was a survivor with parts which was quite a humbling experience that made my empathy grow for survivors even more. This information is so crucial for us to know as a society because it’s information about our literal physiology, psychology and biology that is all but left out of traditional academia. Lucky for us, Jon has taken the liberty of learning things he was never taught and is now paving the way in his field as being an authority on dissociation, DID, and extreme trauma. We are all so blessed to get to learn from his decades of research and practical experience and I ask you all to please put away everything you’re doing and give Jon your full attention.