Christine A. Courtois

Christine A. Courtois, PhD, ABPP, is a graduate of the Counseling Psychology program at the  University of Maryland and a licensed psychologist in DC and MD.  Dr. Courtois has received international recognition for her work on the effects of incest, child sexual abuse, complex traumatic stress disorders and other types of trauma and has received awards from numerous professional organizations. She is a psychotherapist (with broad experience in outpatient and inpatient treatment), workshop leader, and consultant specializing in posttraumatic and dissociative conditions and disorders.

Recently appointed chair of the American Psychological Association PTSD Guidelines Development Panel, Dr. Courtois has co-authored, along with Dr. Julian Ford, Treating Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-based Approach,(2013, Guilford Press), and has a new book, Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Children and Adolescents, Scientific Foundations and Therapeutic Models. As well she has brought out the second edition of Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy (W. W. Norton), co-edited (with Dr. Julian Ford) the book Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-based Guide (2009, Guilford Press) and authored Recollections of Sexual Abuse: Treatment Principles and Guidelines (1999, W. W. Norton), Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse: A Workshop Model (1993), Families International), and Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy (1988, W. W. Norton). She has also co-edited a special section on complex trauma with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in the Journal of Traumatic Stress (2005).

Dr. Courtois is past Associate Editor of the new journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, & Policy https://www.apa.org/journals/tra/). Dr. Courtois is also Co-Founder and former Clinical and Training Director and Consultant to The CENTER: Posttraumatic Disorders Program, an in-patient and day hospital specialty program in Washington, DC, where she worked for 17 years. She is active in a number of professional organizations  having to do with psychological practice and trauma including the American  Psychological Association (where she is past-president of Division 56, Psychological Trauma (www.apatraumadivision.org), the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (www.istss.org) (where she co-chairs the Complex Trauma Task Force), The International Society for Trauma and Dissociation (www.isst-d.org), the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and the Maryland Psychological Association (www.mpa.org) where she organized and co-directed the Post-Doctoral Institute on Psychological Trauma.