Research

While focusing on my private practice, I have remained active in research, because I enjoy continuing to learn and I value scientific evidence for what really works. Being entrusted with the privilege of helping people on their journey to change their lives and heal, I feel a responsibility to continue to develop and expand my own knowledge and skills. It is important to me to integrate current scientific knowledge and recent advances from research with my clinical experience and with a sensitivity to the uniqueness of each individual, couple and family, so that my clients can benefit from both.

I am a member of the Trauma Research Group of Yale University , I am a member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, and I am on the board of the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust http://www.mimeh.org.

I am currently involved in an international collaborative study organized by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

Selected Publications

Patient and psychotherapist meeting in shared intergenerational transmission of genocidal trauma

Survivor Families: Our Parents, Ourselves, Our Changing Lives: A Manual for Facilitators of Discussion Groups

Parental Trauma and Adult Sibling Relationships in Holocaust Survivor Families

Dehumanization in the Treatment of Elderly Holocaust Survivors and Other Elderly Persons with Histories of Prior Traumatization

Irit Felsen, Ph.D., Issue 8: Spring 2018 of the online journal published by the Claims Conference

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Video Testimony of Long-Term Hospitalized Psychiatrically Ill Holocaust Survivors

Rael D. Strous, M.D., Mordechai Weiss, M.D., Irit Felsen, Ph.D., Boris Finkel, M.D., Yuval Melamed, M.D., Avraham Bleich, M.D., Moshe Kotler, M.D., Dori Laub, M.D., American Journal of Psychiatry 162:12, pp. 2287-2294, December 2005. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.12.2287

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Adult-Onset Trauma and Intergenerational Transmission: Integrating Empirical Data and Psychoanalytic Theory, Psychoanalysis, Self and Context