2007 President-Elect and Board Member Elections

Claude M. Chemtob, PhD

Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics,
Director, Child and Family Resilience Program,
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
New York City , New York 10029

Education and Employment

I received my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1980. I directed a clinical research laboratory, and was in charge of research, for many years, at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Honolulu. I also had faculty appointments at the University of Hawaii, in Psychology, in Psychiatry, and in the School of Public Health. I currently have an appointment at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City where I direct the Child and Family Resilience Program. I have held the Cohen Chair and the Falk Chair at the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.

Qualifications Statement

I have a profound commitment to ISTSS as an organization that uniquely brings together clinicians, researchers and advocates.

I have consistently advocated within the organization for a public health perspective on the challenges facing our field. I have successfully participated in public policy change, for example, conceptualizing what is now the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and establishing through working with Congress several initiatives, including the Pacific Center Division of the National Center for PTSD. When I last served on the Board, I was instrumental in establishing the ISTSS Public Policy award to improve recognition of advocates who work in the public policy arena.

I have a broad background as a trauma clinician, researcher and advocate. I worked in the DVA where many of our members have their principal affiliation. I have a private practice and fully appreciate the concerns of front-line clinicians. I have made contributions to both adult and child trauma research. I served as founding co-Director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's Terrorism and Disaster Branch. I was a consultant to the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism.

Importantly, I will be a vigorous voice for enhancing ISTSS role as an organization that is concerned with children. Although much of my early work was focused on adult trauma (in particular information processing and anger in combat-related PTSD), my principal current activities focus on the needs of children and their families-particularly those exposed to terrorism and disaster. I was appointed to city and state advisory committees in New York following 9/11 to help guide the recovery of children and families. I established several child recovery projects directed to preschool children and adolescents in lower Manhattan, worked to develop new ways of intervening with children bereaved by terrorism, and developed a resilience initiative directed to the children of workers involved in Ground Zero rescue and clean-up.

As Trauma Advisor for the UJA Federation of New York, I helped design and organize a network for terrorism response in Israel following the second Intifada. In addition, I continue to work with an infant-toddler initiative that has replicated our work at Ground Zero in several Israeli cities, and I continue to work in collaboration with Ruth Pat-Horenczyk and Danny Brom to help adolescents exposed to recurrent terrorism.

I hold NIMH funding in the form of a RISP-IP infrastructure grant, in collaboration with Robert Abramovitz, focused on increasing academic-practice setting collaboration on child trauma assessment and intervention. I have funding from NIH's NIDDK to investigate a trauma-informed resilience (prevention) intervention for young children with Type 1 Diabetes. I have substantial funding from multiple philanthropic organizations for various child trauma projects.

Finally, I am particularly pleased to have been able to establish with New York City's Administration for Children's Services (in collaboration with Erika Tulberg of ACS) the nation's first Child Trauma Institute housed in a major child welfare system.

In short, I already have enough grey hair to qualify me to run for the ISTSS Board and I won't notice a few more.

Candidacy Statement

I am seeking election to the Board of ISTSS for several reasons.

First, I believe ISTSS has too long been structured as an oligarchy. Very few members ever really get to participate in governance. There are structural barriers that make it hard for members to run for election to the Board unless they are very well known to a relatively small cadre of leaders. For example, to give the simplest example, the Board has not agreed to recognize e-mail nominations for the self-nomination process that the By-laws allow.

Second, as noted by Bessel van der Kolk, I believe the organization has recently been dominated by a particular faction -- albeit of distinguished colleagues -- promoting a particular form of psychotherapy in a cavalier manner. I stand for a society that cleaves to scientific inquiry and values and does not allow the inappropriate use of science to further particular agendas. For example, I believe that the recent ISTSS Guidelines process lacked transparency, was unfair on its face, and did not serve our larger society's interest well. The editors vigorously represented a very particular viewpoint and, in my opinion, this stifled creativity, and also caused many to view the process as unfairly biased to a CBT agenda. Some repair is needed.

Third, I am committed to a Society defined by providing a forum for multiple constituencies to interact richly across traditional boundaries. It is remarkable at a time when interest in trauma and PTSD has exploded that our membership has remained static and that we struggle to balance our budgets every year. I think we need to engage in a vigorous strategic planning process that creates a new more vigorous vision for the ISTSS of the 21st Century.

I stand for election because I believe in ISTSS as a unique community, because I think ISTSS must become far more inclusive if it is to survive, and because I wish to participate in revitalizing ISTSS at a time when it seems in danger.

I sincerely hope that many of you, my fellow members of ISTSS, agree that it is important to revitalize ISTSS and that you will entrust me with representing you in that process.