Judith Lewis Herman

Unicode|Judith Lewis Herman (born 1942) is a psychiatrist, researcher, teacher, and author, whose ground-breaking work on the understanding and treatment of incest and traumatic stress has been widely influential.

Herman is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a founding member of the Women’s Mental Health Collective, now in Somerville, Massachusetts.

She was the recipient of the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the 2000 Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women's Association. In 2003 she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

She is the author of two books, "Father-Daughter Incest," first published in 1981, and "Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror," first published in 1992.

Career

Perhaps her most distinctive contribution to the understanding of trauma and its victims is the concept of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), which extends the diagnostic category post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — a diagnosis that, according to the United States Veterans Administration's Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, "accurately describes the symptoms that result when a person experiences a short-lived trauma" [cite web |last=Whealin,Ph.D. |first=Julia M. |last2=Slone,Ph.D.|first2=Laurie |title=National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet: Complex PTSD |publisher= National Center for PTSD, Department of Veterans Affairs| date = 2007-05-22| url =http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_complex_ptsd.html| format =| doi = | accessdate = 2008-03-15 ] — to include "the syndrome that follows upon prolonged, repeated trauma." [cite book|title=Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year=1997|publisher=Basic Books |pages=p. 119]

It was in Herman's second book "Trauma and Recovery", considered a classic and ground-breaking work [ [http://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Recovery-Judith-Lewis-Herman/dp/0863584306 Amazon.com: Trauma and Recovery: Judith Lewis Herman: Books ] ] cite web|url=http://www.jimhopper.com/trauma_and_recovery/ |title=Trauma and Recovery: Praise, Table of Contents, & Excerpts |publisher=Jim Hopper, Ph.D. with the author and publisher's permission|date=March 23, 2008] that she coined the term complex post-traumatic stress disorder [cite book|title=Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year=1997|publisher=Basic Books |page = p. 119] ." In it she defines this concept not only in terms of prolonged trauma, but in terms of what she calls "subjection to totalitarian control." Examples of this concept include:

...hostages, prisoners of war, concentration-camp survivors, and survivors of some religious cults. Examples also include those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation. [cite book|title=Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year=1997|publisher=Basic Books |pages =p. 121]

"Trauma and Recovery" was praised as a landmark book by Gloria Steinem, the "New York Times Book Review", the "Boston Globe", the "Women's Review of Books"; Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. of Harvard Medical School; Lenore Walker, Ed.D., Director of the Domestic Violence Institute; Laura Davis, coauthor of "The Courage to Heal", and more. [cite book|title=Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year=1997| pages=back cover |publisher=Basic Books |isbn= 0465087302] Herman was interviewed by Harry Kreisler, Executive Director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, for his ongoing series "Conversations with History" at the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley.cite web |url=http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Herman/herman-con0.html |title=Conversation with History; Dr. Judith Lewis Herman |work=Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies |publisher=UC Berkeley| accessmonthday=December 22 |accessyear=2007]

Bibliography

*cite book|title=Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year=1997|edition=(Previous ed.: 1992)| publisher=Basic Books |isbn= 0465087302
*cite book|title=Father-Daughter Incest |first=Judith Lewis |last=Herman |year= 2000 |edition=(Previous ed.: 1981)| publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0674002709

Footnotes

External links

* [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Herman/herman-con0.html Interview with Dr. Judith Lewis Herman] , Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley (transcript and no-cost podcast)
* [http://www.cha.harvard.edu/vov/vov.shtml Boston Trauma Support] :Victims of Violence Program, by Dr.Harman as Director of Training.