Dissociation with Dr Joanne Stubley
From Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri by Annalisa Barbieri
May 28, 2026 · 59 min · Season 12 · Episode 2
About this episode
Annalisa Barbieri discusses the concept of dissociation with Dr Joanne Stubley, exploring its relation to trauma and mental health.
I first came across the concept of dissociation when I saw a film called Sybil starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward. It was about a young woman with multiple personalities. Sybil would dissociate and her various personalities would take over. I’ve since come to realise dissociation can take place as part of the trauma response. Here I'm in conversation with Dr Joanne Stubley who is a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy with years of experience in the mental health field. She leads the adult section of the trauma service at the NHS Tavistock Centre and is a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Jo and I have spoken over quite a few podcasts and a really good companion episode to this one would be the one we did on Trauma. In this episode Jo and I talk about what dissociation is and how it’s very different to dissassociation. We discuss why it happens - how it’s the brain trying to protect us from highly traumatic events. Dissociation, like many things, is on a spectrum from the every day when we can all zone out, to the very much more serious and complex resulting from severe trauma: dissociative identity disorder or DID which is what the film Sybil was about…
People in this episode
Host: Annalisa Barbieri
Guest: Dr Joanne Stubley
Topics covered
- dissociation
- trauma response
- mental health
- dissociative identity disorder
- grounding techniques
Keywords
- dissociation
- trauma
- mental health
- dissociative identity disorder
- grounding techniques
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: NHS Tavistock Centre, British Psychoanalytic Society
Books & works: Sybil
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