Traumatic stress: neurobiology, mental health and prevention

Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer at McLean Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is an international leader in understanding the biology of Posttraumatic stress disorder, and he is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a prior HHMI Investigator, Past-president of the Society for Biological Psychiatry and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is author of >500 manuscripts focused on the molecular neuroscience of fear as well as the human psychobiology of stress and trauma through leadership of multiple national consortia for deep phenotyping, and understanding biomarkers and the genetic architecture of PTSD.

Professor Emeritus at the medical school of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and adjunct professor of psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Shalev has been among the leading figures in the field of trauma and PTSD for more than four decades. As a psychiatrist, a therapist and a researcher, he uniquely and creatively combines different and multi-faceted aspects in his research on trauma. He serves in many national and international task forces and advisory boards on the guidelines for diagnosis, intervention and treatment of PTSD.

He is the founding director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress at the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. He is the editor and co-founder of Dialogue, the Israel Journal of Psychotherapy.

Dr. Stevan Hobfoll is the Judd and Marjorie Weinberg Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Rush Medical College, Chicago. He has authored or edited 12 books, including TRAUMATIC STRESS, THE ECOLOGY OF STRESS, and STRESS CULTURE AND COMMUNITY, with his latest work, TRIBALISM: THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF FEAR POLITICS, forthcoming. He has published over 300 journal articles and secured over $18 million in research grants.

Dr. Hobfoll's research focuses on trauma in conflict zones and the links between stress and health, particularly in women. He has served as a Senior Fellow at the University of Haifa and as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. Recognised by Encyclopædia Britannica for his Ecology of Stress, he has received lifetime achievement awards for his contributions to stress and health research. He has also held prominent roles, including co-chairing the APA Commission on Stress and War and consulting with nations, militaries, and corporations on stress management.

As a mentor, Dr. Hobfoll was named Mentor of the Year in 2012 at Rush University Medical Center and has trained over 25 Fellows. His work on mass casualty intervention has been recognised as one of the most influential recent contributions to psychiatry. (h-index 76; 36,428 citations as of 2018).

Dr Ken Carswell has a background in clinical psychology and is a Mental Health Specialist with the WHO Department of Mental Health, Brain Health and Substance Use in Geneva. He is the departmental focal point for innovation, digital mental health and scalable psychological interventions.

He has been centrally involved in the development, testing – in randomised controlled trials - and implementation of WHO scalable psychological interventions for populations affected by adversity. These include Self-Help Plus, a multi-media stress management course and online self-help interventions for common mental health conditions. These and many other psychological interventions and products are available as open access in many languages from the WHO website (search for: WHO Psychological Interventions) and are being used widely in a number of countries.

Prof. dr. Paul A. Boelen is full professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology at Utrecht University. He also works as a psychotherapist at ARQ Centrum'45. Paul Boelen is licensed supervisor and cognitive behavioral therapist with the Dutch Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy and is also affiliated with ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre.

Emily Holmes, PhD, DClinPsych is a Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden and is affiliated to the Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

Holmes received her degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, UK. She is also a clinician and completed a clinical psychology training doctorate at Royal Holloway University of London, and a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience in Cambridge, UK. She became Professor in 2010 at the University of Oxford. Holmes is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA). She is the recipient of several international awards, including from the American Psychological Association and the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Holmes serves on the Board of Trustees of the research charity "MQ; transforming mental health”.

Holmes’ work as a clinical psychologist has fuelled her research questions. She is interested in psychological treatment innovation in mental health – both in creating new techniques and reaching more people. Under the wider umbrella of mental health science, her approach brings together psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, maths and more. Holmes’ research has demonstrated that mental imagery has a more powerful impact on emotion than its verbal counterpart. Her group is particularly interested in understanding and reducing intrusive memories (‘flashbacks’) after traumatic events, whether a severe car accident, traumatic childbirth, war, or events during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end her research team in Uppsala are creating a hub studying intrusive memories internationally, with current collaborations including UK, Iceland, Columbia and Australia.