Dr. Steven Southwick, newly named as the inaugural Greenberg Professor of Psychiatry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Resilience, is a recognized expert on the psychological and neurobiological effects of extreme psychological trauma.
He has published extensively in the scientific literature on the phenomenology and neurobiology of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the longitudinal course of trauma-related psychological symptoms, memory for traumatic events, treatment of PTSD, and on neurobiological and psychological factors associated with resilience to stress. He has worked with a range of stress-sensitive and stress-resilient individuals including combat veterans with PTSD, civilian children and adults with PTSD, stress-resilient prisoners of war, and active Special Forces soldiers.
A 1974 graduate of Yale College, Southwick earned his M.D. at George Washington University. He completed his internship at the John Hopkins Hospital and psychiatry residency at the Yale medical school. He currently has a joint appointment at the Child Study Center, and serves as an adjunct professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and medical director of the Clinical Neurosciences Division of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Southwick has earned numerous awards in recognition of his clinical and research work and his teaching. These include selection three times by the Department of Psychiatry Resident’s Association as Outstanding Psychiatry Faculty Teacher, the Stephen Fleck Award for a Yale faculty clinician, the Connecticut Psychiatric Society’s Roger Coleman Memorial Award, the Henry P. and Page Laughlin Distinguished Teacher Award, and the Joseph B. Fabry Founders Award. He has been awarded numerous research grants and has served on a number of federal grant review committees.
The Greenberg Professor of Psychiatry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Resilience was created with a major gift from Glenn H. Greenberg ’68 to enhance understanding of psychological trauma, PTSD, and resilience.