Psychiatrist Judith Herman on trauma, justice for survivors and her passion for social justice

Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of domestic violence and sexual trauma. 

Psychiatrist Judith Herman changed the way we view trauma. When she was studying to become a psychiatrist in the 1970s, the commonly held belief was only men returning from war could experience trauma.

But Herman recognized similarities between the symptoms displayed by Vietnam veterans returning from combat and victims of rape and incest, often women.

“My first two patients on the inpatient service where began my psychiatric residency were working-class women who had made suicide attempts, and both of them gave histories of father-daughter incest.,” Herman says. “We wrote a paper. People made Xerox copies and it went hand-to-hand. And we started getting letters from all over the country saying, ‘I thought I was the only one.’”