Interventions Following Mass Violence and Disasters

Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH, is Psychiatry Consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General. Her assignments and other missions have taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, Israel, and Vietnam. An internationally recognized expert, Dr. Ritchie brings a unique public health approach to the management of disaster and combat mental health issues. She has published numerous articles on forensic, disaster, and military operational psychiatry.

Patricia J. Watson, PhD, is an Educational Specialist, National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School. At the National Center for PTSD, she collaborates with other national agencies and subject-matter experts to create publications for public and mental health interventions following large-scale terrorism, disasters, and pandemic flu. Special areas of professional interest include science-to-service interventions in disaster/terrorism events, early intervention treatments for trauma, the effects of childhood trauma on adult coping and development, trauma in children and adolescents, the interface between disability/injury and quality of life, and growth aspects of trauma.

Matthew J. Friedman, MD, PhD, before retiring in 2022, was founder and Director of the National PTSD Brain Bank; Senior Advisor to the National Center for PTSD, where he served for 24 years as Executive Director; and Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He worked as a clinician and researcher for over 50 years, and has approximately 360 publications, including 29 books. Dr. Friedman is past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and past chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5-TR and DSM-5 PTSD Work Groups. He has served on numerous national research, education, and policy committees and has received many honors for his leadership and contributions to the field.

Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH, is Psychiatry Consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General. Her assignments and other missions have taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, Israel, and Vietnam. An internationally recognized expert, Dr. Ritchie brings a unique public health approach to the management of disaster and combat mental health issues. She has published numerous articles on forensic, disaster, and military operational psychiatry.

Patricia J. Watson, PhD, is an Educational Specialist, National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School. At the National Center for PTSD, she collaborates with other national agencies and subject-matter experts to create publications for public and mental health interventions following large-scale terrorism, disasters, and pandemic flu. Special areas of professional interest include science-to-service interventions in disaster/terrorism events, early intervention treatments for trauma, the effects of childhood trauma on adult coping and development, trauma in children and adolescents, the interface between disability/injury and quality of life, and growth aspects of trauma.

Matthew J. Friedman, MD, PhD, is Executive Director, National Center for PTSD, and Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, Dartmouth Medical School. He has worked as a clinician and researcher for 30 years, and has published 15 books and over 140 chapters and scientific articles on stress and PTSD, biological psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and clinical outcome studies on depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and chemical dependency. Listed in The Best Doctors in America, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association; past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, which awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award; and Chair of the scientific advisory board of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.