Board Members - Trauma Research Foundation

Trauma Research Foundation

Board of Directors

Bessel van der Kolk, MD Co-founder

spends his career studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences, and has translated emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of treatments for traumatic stress in children and adults.

In 1984, he set up one of the first clinical/research centers in the US dedicated to study and treatment of traumatic stress in civilian populations, which has trained numerous researchers and clinicians specializing in the study and treatment of traumatic stress, and which has been continually funded to research the impact of traumatic stress and effective treatment interventions. He did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD; was a member of the first neuroimaging team to investigate how trauma changes brain processes, and did the first research linking BPD and deliberate self-injury to trauma and neglect in early childhood.

Much of his research has focused on how trauma has a different impact at different stages of development, and that disruptions in care-giving systems have additional deleterious effects that need to be addressed for effective intervention. In order to promote a deeper understanding of the impact of childhood trauma and to foster the development and execution of effective treatment interventions, he initiated the process that led to the establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a Congressionally mandated initiative that now funds approximately 150 centers specializing in developing effective treatment interventions, and implementing them in a wide array of settings, from juvenile detention centers to tribal agencies, nationwide.

He has focused on studying treatments that stabilize physiology, increase executive functioning and help traumatized individuals to feel fully alert to the present. This has included an NIMH funded study on EMDR and NCCAM funded study of yoga, and, in recent years, the study of neurofeedback to investigate whether attentional and perceptual systems (and the neural tracks responsible for them) can be altered by changing EEG patterns.

His efforts resulted in the establishment of Trauma Center (now the Trauma Research Foundation) that consisted of a well-trained clinical team specializing in the treatment of children and adults with histories of child maltreatment, that applied treatment models that are widely taught and implemented nationwide, a research lab that studied the effects of neurofeedback and MDMA on behavior, mood, and executive functioning, and numerous trainings nationwide to a variety of mental health professional, educators, parent groups, policy makers, and law enforcement personnel.

He is author of the New York Times best seller The Body Keeps the Score, which has been translated into 35 languages, and of well over 150 peer reviewed scientific articles.

View Bessel van der Kolk's Full Bio
View Bessel van der Kolk's Curriculum Vitae

Licia Sky, Co-founder

is a Boston based artist, singer-songwriter, and bodyworker who works with traumatized individuals and trains mental health professionals to use Embodied Self Experience in movement, theater exercises, writing and voice as tools for attunement, healing and connection.

Benjamin Fry

is the Founder of NeuralSolution, Khiron Clinics and Get Stable. He is an accredited psychotherapist, author and entrepreneur.

He has had a rich and varied career, combining his interests in psychology, the media and business. In his twenties he founded two small businesses before starting a family, training as a psychotherapist and writing his first book which led to presenting a television series for the BBC.

More recently he has combined his business experience, clinical training and media skills to set up Khiron House, a residential mental-health clinic, to lobby for more effective treatment in the public sector through his non-profit Get Stable and to found NeuralSolution which delivers nervous system informed technology for a variety of behavioural health problems.

J. W. Freiberg, Ph.D.; J.D.

was formerly Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at Boston University, and simultaneously Instructeur at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. At both institutions he taught Social Psychology. More recently he has published three prize winning books on the topic of chronic loneliness.

Subsequently, Freiberg practiced law at Hale & Dorr, leaving to become Chairman of Weston Patrick. He is the author of five books: Surrounded By Others and Yet So Alone; Growing Up Lonely; Four Seasons of Loneliness; The French Press: Class, State and Ideology; and Critical Sociology: European Perspectives, as well as over thirty-five articles, book introductions, and other scholarly works on social psychological, and legal issues. His recent work has concentrated on the public health ramifications of chronic loneliness, and his story-based writing style has led to him having been described as "The Oliver Sacks of Law."

Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

is the Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School.

An international expert on the treatment of trauma, is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017) and Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021). She is best known for her work on integrating newer neurobiologically-informed interventions into traditional psychotherapy approaches. More information can be found on her website: www.janinafisher.com. Picture Learning Australia, and he also sits on the board of trustees for Rudolf Steiner College.

Frank Anderson, MD

completed his residency and was a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is both a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He specializes in the treatment of trauma and dissociation and is passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the IFS model of therapy.

Dr. Anderson is a Lead Trainer at the IFS Institute with Richard Schwartz and maintains a long affiliation with, and trains for, Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Center. He serves as an advisor to the International Association of Trauma Professionals (IATP) and was the former chair and director of the Foundation for Self-Leadership.

Dr. Anderson has lectured extensively on the Neurobiology of PTSD and Dissociation and wrote the chapter “Who’s Taking What” Connecting Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology and Internal Family Systems for Trauma in Internal Family Systems Therapy – New Dimensions. He co-authored a chapter on What IFS Brings to Trauma Treatment in Innovations and Elaborations in Internal Family Systems Therapy, and recently co-authored Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual.

His most recent book, entitled Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems was released on May 19, 2021.

Dr. Anderson maintains a private practice in Concord, MA.