Expert on the effects of post-traumatic stress named the inaugural Greenberg Professor

Steven M. Southwick, M.D., a widely recognized expert on the psychological and neurobiological effects of extreme psychological trauma, has been named the inaugural Greenberg Professor of Psychiatry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Resilience.

Southwick, also professor in the Child Study Center, has published extensively 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 Johns Hopkins Hospital and a residency in psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at 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 accomplishments and his teaching. These include selection by Yale’s Psychiatry Residents’ Association as Outstanding Psychiatry Faculty Teacher, an honor he has received three times; the Stephen Fleck Award for a Yale faculty clinician; and the Connecticut Psychiatric Society’s Roger Coleman Memorial Award.

The professorship was created with a gift from Glenn H. Greenberg, of the Yale College Class of ’68, to enhance understanding and advance treatment of psychological trauma, PTSD, and resilience.