Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Dr. Speckhard has worked as clinical and research specialist in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder for the past twenty years and has consulted internationally with victims of many types of trauma in the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of a book and many scientific articles and chapters pertaining to psychological trauma and has lectured internationally in universities and hospitals around the world. Dr. Speckhard is Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University Medical School in the Psychiatry Department and Professor of Psychology Vesalius College, Free University of Brussels. Terrorism Dr. Speckhard is an expert on terrorism. She has been collecting research interviews of Chechens, Palestinians and Moroccan would be suicide bombers and incarcerated militants, family members and close associates of suicide terrorists, senders of suicide terrorists, and those involved in terror organizations as well as consulting with other experts on the phenomena. Dr. Speckhard also worked with Americans living abroad following the September 11th terrorism attacks and also debriefed hostages in the Chechen terrorism attack on the Moscow Dubrovka theater in 2002 and the Beslan school attack in 2004, collecting research data in each instance. She is currently examining abortion clinic terrorism in the United States. Dr. Speckhard has consulted to the foreign ministry and/or security forces of the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Singapore as well as to NATO and to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She served as co-director of the NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop Ideologies of Terrorism: Understanding and Countering the Social, Psychological and Political Underpinnings of Terrorism and serves on the NATO-Russia Counterterrorism Task Force and the NATO Human Factors and Medicine Panel Exploratory Team on “Psychosocial, Organisational and Cultural Aspects of Terrorism”. Holocaust Oral Histories Project in Belarus Dr. Speckhard is the director of the Holocaust Oral Histories Project in Belarus. Begun in 1999 it is an ongoing project collecting oral histories from survivors of the Minsk ghetto and Holocaust in Belarus. Sixty-five oral histories have been collected to date that include all the surviving members of the Minsk ghetto still alive in Belarus. The project also studies long-term posttraumatic stress responses in this population. Dr. Speckhard is currently working on Minsk Ghetto & Beyond: Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust in Belarus a nonfiction book describing the Holocaust experiences of those who survived in the Minsk ghetto, escaped to the fight in the partisans, or who were hidden in orphanages and homes. Women's Reproductive Health Dr. Speckhard has researched posttraumatic responses to pregnancy termination since the 1980's and has conducted research interviews in the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union. She was one of the first to write about the topic of post abortion stress and to identify abortion as a potential traumatic stressor. She is the author of the book Psychosocial Responses to Abortion and many scientific articles about the reactions of women who experience their abortions traumatically. Dr. Speckhard has also begun work in the former Soviet Union studying the psychological responses of women to traumatic childbirth. Toxic Traumas Exposure to radiation and toxins can become the basis of an "invisible" traumatic stressor. Dr. Speckhard has worked with victims of the Chernobyl disaster in Belarus and victims of other toxic disasters/exposures as well. This area of research becomes increasingly relevant given the increased threats of biological, radiological and chemical terrorism.
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