Rational and Irrational Psychopharmacology for Complex Trauma and Dissociative Disorders

Richard J. Loewenstein MD

Richard J. Loewenstein MD is the founder and Medical Director of The Trauma Disorders Program at Sheppard Pratt Health Systems, Baltimore, MD and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The Trauma Disorders Program includes a 22-bed inpatient unit, an outpatient program, a fellowship program, and research, consultation and teaching components. He did a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD. He is the author of over 75 papers and chapters on sleep disorders, consultation-liaison psychiatry, dissociation, dissociative disorders, and trauma disorders. He is a fellow of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has received numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (the organizations highest award). He is an advisor to the longitudinal Treatment of Patients with Dissociative Disorders (TOPDD) Study headed by Bethany Brand, PhD of Towson University. He has over 30 years experience in the diagnosis and treatment of thousands of adults with severe complex trauma and dissociative disorders (CT/DD), particularly those with dissociative identity disorder (DID). Since 1992, he has been attending psychiatrist and team leader on the inpatient Trauma Disorders Unit at Sheppard Pratt Health System. Here he gained extensive experience in the medication management and provision of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for complex trauma and dissociative disorder patients. In addition, since the early 1980s, he has worked with CT/DD/DID outpatients, either as individual therapist, or as medication manager in collaboration with non-medical therapists. Also, he has extensive experience in the differential diagnosis and management of somatic symptoms and conversion disorders in this patient population, to assess the contribution of medical and/or psychological factors in the somatic symptoms in these patients.