Judith Herman

Judith Lewis Herman
Born	1942 (age 75–76)
Nationality	American
Known for	Research on complex post-traumatic stress disorder and incest
Scientific career
Fields	Psychiatry

Judith Lewis Herman (born 1942) is an American psychiatrist, researcher, teacher, and author who has focused on the understanding and treatment of incest and traumatic stress.

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.

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.

Judith Herman is best known for her distinctive contributions to the understanding of trauma and its victims, as set out in her second book, the now classic study of the diagnostic category post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Trauma and Recovery. There she distinguishes between single-incident traumas – one-off events – which she termed Type I traumas, and complex or repeated traumas (Type II). Type I trauma, 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 psychological trauma". Type II – the concept of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) – includes "the syndrome that follows upon prolonged, repeated trauma". Although not accepted by DSM-IV as a separate diagnostic category, the notion of complex traumas has been found useful in clinical practice.

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