Judith Lewis Herman MD

Judith Lewis Herman MD is Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry (part time) at Harvard Medical School. For thirty years, until she retired, she was Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program at The Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge, MA. She is the author of the award-winning books Father-Daughter Incest (Harvard University Press, 1981), and Trauma and Recovery (Basic Books, 1992). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1984 and the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. In 2007 she was named a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Her new book, Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice, was published in March, 2023. She is recognized nationally and internationally as a pioneer in the field of traumatic stress, both for research contributions and for conceptual work.
Her work on psychological trauma has focused particularly on the subject of gender-based violence, which is now recognized by the United Nations as the most widespread form of human rights violation in the world. In the 1970’s, her original research called attention to the prevalence and serious mental health consequences of father-daughter incest. In the 1980’s, with colleagues Nanette Gartrell and Silvia Olarte, she conducted a nationwide survey of sexual misconduct by psychiatrists. Also in the 1980’s, with colleagues Bessel van der Kolk and J. Christopher Perry, she conducted research that demonstrated the major role of childhood trauma in the development of Borderline Personality Disorder. Beginning in the early 2000’s, her work has focused on the intersection of psychiatry and law, as she conducted in-depth interviews with trauma survivors regarding their views of justice. These researches have culminated in her new book, Truth and Repair, published in 2023, which the New York Times reviewer called “a beautiful, profound, and important book.”