Judith Herman
American psychiatrist known for research on trauma and recovery
American psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School whose book Trauma and Recovery (1992) distinguished single-incident trauma from complex, repeated trauma and set out a three-stage approach to treatment.
Why this person matters
Herman linked trauma in private life to trauma in war and political violence, and described the syndrome that follows prolonged, repeated trauma. The eleventh revision of the ICD later included a related diagnosis. Her work drew on research on incest and on literature about combat veterans and victims of political terror.
Main contributions
Trauma and Recovery
In this 1992 book Herman argued that psychological trauma cannot be separated from its social and political context. She drew on her research on incest and on literature about combat veterans and victims of political terror, linking harms such as child abuse with war.
Complex post-traumatic stress
She distinguished single-incident trauma from complex, repeated trauma, the syndrome that follows prolonged, repeated trauma. A reference article states that the eleventh revision of the ICD, released in 2018, included complex PTSD for the first time.
Three stages of recovery
She set out a treatment sequence of establishing safety, working through the trauma and moving toward a new life after trauma.
Context and limits
The sources read contain no section on criticism of her work, so none is reported. The ICD-11 diagnosis is described as including complex PTSD for the first time; whether it matches her formulation exactly was not checked. Her 1994 article with Harvey concerns delayed recall of childhood trauma, and the pages read do not describe the wider debate on that topic.
In your introductory course
Psychological disorders.Herman appears in chapters on trauma and stress-related disorders, and in discussions of treatment staging. Students meet the distinction between single-incident and complex trauma.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 15.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1981
Her early book Father-Daughter Incest was published.
- 1992
Trauma and Recovery was published.
- 1994
She published an article with Mary Harvey on amnesia, partial amnesia and delayed recall among adult survivors of childhood trauma.
Sources
- Hachette Book Group, Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman, MDPublisher. Abstract inspected.
- Wikipedia, Judith Lewis HermanReference work. Reference article inspected.