May 2026:
Meet Dr. Rick Hohfeler &
Dissociation: The Hidden Side of Trauma

While caregivers of all stripes have been recognizing and encountered severely traumatized people, especially since the advent of "Trauma-Informed Care," ways in which those traumatized folks adapt have not been well understood. In order to hide the pain they had suffered and not realize the meanings of what happened, many traumatized people, particularly those abused in early childhood, find ways to hide not only from others, but from themselves. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Dissociative Identity Disorder is one of a "mind hiding from itself" (Chefetz, 2015).

This interactive presentation will explore how understanding and recognizing dissociative symptoms can give meaning to the more recognizable symptoms that present to us as clinical providers, e.g., chronic and treatment resistant depression, anxiety and panic, visual and auditory hallucinations, OCD, eating disorders, and many others. In fact, many clinicians who treat DID report how their clients have received multiple diagnoses from previous providers before discovering dissociative issues. Diagnosing dissociative disorders leads to a treatment that becomes more engaged and productive rather than chasing symptom relief of their co-morbidities. 

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More about Dr. Rick Hohfeler

He is a clinical psychologist graduating from Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in 1986. He has maintained a private practice in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area for the past 30 years, specializing in psychological trauma since 1986 as co-manager of an inpatient program treating survivors of abuse at Rogers Memorial Hospital where he also co-managed an inpatient program treating children and adolescents until 1995. He continues to treat adults, children, and adolescents suffering from disorders associated with severe developmental trauma including a special emphasis on dissociative disorders in private practice. This specialty was also applied within the Wisconsin Department of Corrections from 2008-2020. He has provided supervision and consultation to therapists and case managers from a variety of agencies in the Milwaukee area for the past 20 years with consultation affiliations having expanded internationally.

Rick is a faculty member of the Wisconsin School of Professional Psychology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he has taught courses in trauma and dissociation. He is a member of ISSTD and was elected to their Board of Directors in 2016, serving until 2021. Since 2014 he has acted as moderator for the Virtual Book Club sponsored by ISSTD. He has presented professionally on topics related to trauma and dissociation locally, nationally, and internationally. He has published papers related to working with trauma/dissociation in forensic settings as well as a paper regarding the regulatory aspects of shame in dissociative disorders.

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