Founder

UTE LAWRENCE

Ute Lawrence is the Founder of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Association and Chair of the association’s Board of Directors and author of the award winning book The Power of Trauma, conquering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Ute is uniquely poised to present a new perspective within the field of PTSD, especially important with increased diagnoses of PTSD in first responders, emergency workers, veterans etc. and those who experienced life-changing traumatic events.

She has experienced PTSD in her own life. She was one of the survivors of the most horrific car-pile up in Canadian history in 1999. Eighty seven vehicles were involved in this tragedy that killed 8 people.

Board of Directors

Ute Lawrence, Chair

Lynn Blumas,

Dr. Sandra Fisman

Donna Vanderwoude-Dyment

Irene Patterson

Dr. Ruth Lanius (Clinical)

Clinical Board

CHAIR

Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry is the Director of the Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Research Unit at the University of Western Ontario. She currently holds the Harris-Woodman Chair in Mind-Body Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. Her research interests focus on studying the neurobiology of PTSD and treatment outcome research examining various pharmacological and psychotherapeutic methods. She has authored more than 100 published papers, chapters and abstracts in the field of traumatic stress and is currently funded by several federal funding agencies. She regularly lectures on the topic of PTSD nationally and internationally. She has recently published a book ‘The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease’ with Eric Vermetten and Clare Pain.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He is Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Clinical Director of the Trauma Center in Boston, MA.

Dr. Eric Vermetten is a Psychiatrist/Senior Researcher at University Medical Center/Central Military Hospital, Utrecht , The Netherlands. His areas of specialization include Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Psychiatry, and Psychiatry/Clinical Neuroscience. He has been widely published on a variety of topics include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Dr. Frank Putnam is Director of the Mayerson Center for Safe & Healthy Children and Professor of Pediatrics & Child Psychiatry at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati Ohio . He has published widely on topics in the areas of Psychology, Neuroanatomy, Adult Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry including sexual abuse in children. Dr. Putnam is the recipient of the Morton Prince Scientific Achievement Award 1985, Cornelia Wilbur Clinical Service Award 1990, United States Public Health Service Medal of Commendation 1992, Pierre Janet Scientific Writing Award 1993, and was Richter Visiting Professor of Child Psychiatry at Indiana University in 2000.

Dr. Allan Schore is a Neuropsychoanalyst with a private Psychotherapy practice in Los Angeles , California . Dr. Schore has been widely published on topics in the areas of Clinical Child Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology.

Dr. Sandra Fisman is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. She is currently Professor and Chair of the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Department of Psychiatry in London , Ontario , and cross appointed in the academic university Departments of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at UWO. Her clinical interests include difficult to treat children and adolescents with developmental and behavioural disorders. Dr. Fisman has been published widely on the effects of handicapped children on other family members. She is currently engaged in a three-year prevention and early intervention study in the school system for adolescent females with mood and related disorders funded by Women's Health Council of Ontario.

Dr. Nick Coupland is Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His clinical and research interests are in PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders, particularly using neuroimaging to investigate alterations in brain structure, chemistry and function.

Dr. Richard J. Loewenstein M.D. is a Senior Psychiatrist and the founder and Medical Director of The Trauma Disorders Program at Sheppard Pratt Health Systems, Baltimore, MD, ranked by U.S. News and World Report as among America’s 10 top psychiatric facilities. He is also Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Yale University School of Medicine where he did his residency. After a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD, he spent 5 years at UCLA and the West LA VA Medical Center. He is the author of over 50 papers and book chapters on sleep disorders, consultation-liaison psychiatry, dissociation, dissociative disorders, and trauma disorders. He has written chapters on Treatment of Dissociative Amnesia and Fugue for the American Psychiatric Association’s book, Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders and is co-author with Richard Kluft, MD of a chapter on Treatment of Dissociative Disorders and Depersonalization in the 2007 edition of Gabbard's Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders. He is co-author, with Frank W. Putnam, M.D., of the section on Dissociative Disorders in Sadock & Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Eighth Edition. He lectures frequently on these dissociation and trauma to regional, national, and international groups. He is the founder and director of the Trauma Disorders Program at Sheppard Pratt Hospital including a 20-bed inpatient unit, a day hospital program, an outpatient program, a postdoctoral fellowship program, and research, consultation and teaching components. Dr. Loewenstein is co-chair of the American Psychiatric Association President’s Task Force on the Bio-psychosocial Consequences of Childhood Trauma. In 2008, he was awarded the Cornelia Wilbur award for his contributions to clinical studies of trauma and dissociation by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. He also presented the Pierre Janet annual award lecture to the same organization at their annual meeting in 2008.

Dr. Clare Pain is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Psychological Trauma Program at Mount Sinai Hospital, Co-project director of the Toronto Addis Ababa Psychiatry Project (TAAPP) www.utoronto.ca/ethiopia, and Coordinator of the University of Toronto-Addis Ababa Collaboration Program. Her focus is on the assessment and treatment of patients with psychological trauma and trans-cultural aspects of psychological trauma. Together with Pat Ogden and Kekuni Minton she published "Trauma and the Body: a Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy" Norton 2006.

Lieutenant-Colonel (LCol) Rakesh Jetly, OMM CD MD FRCPC is a psychiatrist and Mental Health Advisor in the new Mental Health Directorate recently established within the Canadian Forces Health Services Group. He began his military career 20 years ago as a General Duty Medical Officer and Flight Surgeon at Canadian Forces Base Borden, Ontario. In 1993 he deployed as the Senior Medical Officer to the United Nations Disengagement Force mission in the Golan Heights. In 1994 he deployed to Rwanda as part of Canada's contribution to the United Nations humanitarian mission. Between 1996 and 2000 he returned to the University of Toronto to complete postgraduate training in psychiatry. From 2000 to 2008 he was posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he held various positions including Regional Director of the Operational Trauma and Stress Support Centre and Clinical Director of the Mental Health Services section at the military hospital. In the fall of 2004 he deployed to Faslane, Scotland, to lead the mental health response to the tragic fire onboard HMCS CHICOUTIMI. He has also deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan twice, in 2006 and then again in 2007. LCol Jetly is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University. He has presented nationally and internationally on topics such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and operational psychiatry.

Dr. Constance Dalenberg
Dr. Dalenberg is Distinguished Professor at Alliant International University San Diego, where she teaches Assessment and Treatment of Traumatic Disorders, Multivariate Statistics, and Forensic Psychology and is Director of the Trauma Research Institute.  She is recent past President of Division 56 (Trauma Psychology) of the APA and associate editor of Psychological Trauma, Division 56’s journal.  She has also served on the editorial boards of Child Maltreatment, Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, and Journal of Traumatic Stress, and has published widely in the areas of trauma consequences and trauma treatment, particularly in the area of traumatic transference and countertransference.  Her APA text on countertransference received ISSTD’s 2002 award for clinical contributions, and her recent paper on the evidence for the competing trauma and fantasy models of dissociation won the 2012 ISSTD’s Pierre Janet writing award.  Her clinical and forensic practice is in San Diego, California. 

Dr. Vincent J. Feletti is a Co-Principal Investigator of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, ongoing collaborative research between Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control.  A 1962 graduate of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, Dr. Felitti is an internist who founded the Department of Preventive Medicine for Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, California in 1975.  He served as Chief of Preventive Medicine until 2001. Under Dr. Felitti’s leadership, the Health Appraisal Division of the department became the largest single-site medical evaluation facility in the world, providing comprehensive, biopsychosocial medical evaluation to a total of 1.3 million individual adults. During his career, he developed major health-risk abatement programs for obesity, smoking, the genetic disease Hemochromatosis, and for somatization disorders.  These programs are provided to over 1,000 patients per month in San Diego.  Dr. Felitti is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California and a Fellow of The American College of Physicians.

AMBASSADOR CORP

Lynn Osmond
Hon. AIA President & CEO Chicago Architecture Foundation

Suzanne E. Harrill
M. Ed., LPC, Inner Works Publishing Inc.

Susan M. Hunter
Writing & Project Management