Bessel van der Kolk, Onno van der Hart – Bessel van der Kolk Interview Series – Onno van der Hart, Ph.D. world-renowned expert on treating dissociative disorders

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. Related seminars and products: 58

Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., is a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of post-traumatic stress.  His work integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment.

Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development, memory, and the psychobiology of trauma.  He has published over 150 peer reviewed scientific articles on such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, Developmental Trauma, yoga, theater, and EMDR. 

He is founder of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, and President of the Trauma Research Foundation, which promotes clinical, scientific, and educational projects. 

His 2014 #1 New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma, transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring – specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust.  He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, somatically based therapies, EMDR, psychodrama, play, yoga, and other therapies.

Dr. van der Kolk is the past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School.  He regularly teaches at conferences, universities, and hospitals around the world.

Speaker Disclosures:

Onno van der Hart, Ph.D. Related seminars and products: 3

Onno van der Hart offers, nationally and internationally, training and consultation on trauma-related dissociation, complex trauma-related disorders including the dissociative disorders. A psychologist, adult psychotherapist, trained family therapist and researcher, he is Emeritus Professor of Psychopathology of Chronic Traumatization at the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and, until January 1, 2013, a psychologist/ psychotherapist at the Sinai Center for Mental Health, Amstelveen. He is clinical consultant of the Center for Post-Trauma Therapy and Trauma Education, Helsinki and Oulu, Finland. He was Chief of Research at the Cats-Polm Institute—a research institute in the area of childhood abuse and neglect—in Zeist and a lead psychotherapist, specialized in the treatment of clients with complex trauma-related disorders, at the Mental Health Center Buitenamstel in Amsterdam.

He has been on the Editorial Board of a number of scientific journals, and he has published several books in the area of trauma and dissociation, loss, and bereavement, and over 100 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (several of which can be found at this website). Onno van der Hart is a Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), a former Vice-President and Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH). He is a scholar in Pierre Janet studies.

Prof. Van der Hart has worked with colleagues Ellert Nijenhuis, PhD, and Kathy Steele, MN, CS, on a theoretical approach on trauma-related dissociation of the personality and treatment model which unifies psychiatric disorders with a traumatic stress origin. Their combined efforts resulted, among other things, in the publication of their book, The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (New YorkLondon: W.W. Norton & Cie, 2006), for which they received the Media Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. A more recent, related publication is the book Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation: Skills Training for and Therapists, by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele and Onno van der Hart (New YorkLondon: W. W. Norton & Co), for which the authors received the 2011 Pierre Janet Writing Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.