About us

Like many of us, my involvement in the field of dissociation started when I came across a patient who didn’t seem to fit into any of the presentations I had been trained to expect as psychoanalyst.

That was in 1989.

Back then virtually nothing was known about this condition and certainly no resources or training existed in the UK. It was the ISSTD, now the ISSTD (international society for the study of trauma and dissociation) that became my mentor and trainer.

Over the following three decades most of the treatment was provided within the private sector. Despite the condition being present in both DSM and ICD Psychiatric manuals, existence was too often doubted, disbelieved, dismissed or occasionally acknowledged as very rare. As a hidden condition often steeped in shame, it was not surprising in retrospect that people with this condition hid their symptoms. At the time talking of hearing voices for instance would determine the pathway towards a diagnosis of psychosis or schizophrenia. 

The Pottergate Centre was established in 1991 and eventually became a limited company in 2023.

For many years our focus had been to offer assessments and treatments through exceptional funding (from CCGs and ICBs). These were delivered by our associate therapists across the country.

The last five years has seen a growing acceptance within secondary services (primarily among clinical psychologists) of patients with dissociative disorders linked to extreme early childhood trauma. The new addition of the SCID-D (Semi-Structured Clinical Interview for Dissociative Symptoms and Disorders) makes it now possible to diagnose under both DSM5 and ICD11.

Consequently, our focus has turned to encouraging and assisting secondary services, where possible,  to set up their own outpatient treatment for dissociative patients.