Rosemary Masters, JD, LCSW

Rosemary Masters, JD, LCSW, is the Founding Director of the Trauma Studies Center, a Division of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City. Her involvement with the study and treatment of psychological trauma began in 1980 when she was recruited by the New York City Victim Services Agency to develop and direct the first support and treatment program in the United States for families of homicide victims. An article describing this work and written by her was honored by inclusion in the inaugural edition of Traumatic Stress Studies, the journal of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Subsequently trained in psychoanalysis and family therapy, she was drawn back to the trauma field in the 1990’s after being introduced to the work of Bessel van der Kolk. She immediately recognized that approaching mental health disorders through the paradigm of the neurobiology of traumatic stress would revolutionize the practice of psychotherapy.

In 2002, Rosemary and her colleagues inaugurated the Trauma Studies Center as a Division of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Under Rosemary’s leadership as Founding Director, the Center began to offer trauma focused treatment through the Institute’s adult treatment clinic. Since its initiation, the Center has sponsored numerous presentations by leaders in the trauma field. Since 2005 the Center’s two-year Integrated Trauma Studies Program has trained mental health professionals in the theory, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological trauma. The Program’s synthesis of theory and clinical experience is widely respected as one of the most rigorous and comprehensive trauma training programs in the country.

In addition to directing the Trauma Studies Center, Rosemary has served as a consultant for numerous human service agencies in the U.S. and abroad. Here in the U.S., she consulted for over five years with the LaGuardia Community College EMT and Paramedic training program. Together with the La Guardia faculty and its head, Christine Alvarez, she worked to develop easily implemented methods to teach emergency medical personnel how to calm terrified patients and their families. For HealthRight International, Rosemary has testified at asylum hearings on behalf of more than 50 survivors of torture.

Rosemary’s overseas work includes a partnership with Pilgrim Africa, a Ugandan indigenous NGO. She trained human services workers in the war torn Teso region of northern Uganda to recognize and assist survivors of psychological trauma. Between 2011 and 2014, at the request of the Uganda Counseling Association, she headed a team of clinicians who traveled to Kampala, Uganda and trained mental health counselors in EMDR, a widely recognized method for treating PTSD.

In 2019 she joined the Board of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and is focused on integrating antiracism practices into the Institute’s training and treatment programs. She continues to consult.

Rosemary notes that as a graduate of Harvard Law School (a member of a a class in which she was one of 15 women in a class of 550), she is a statistic the alumni/alumnae office has never known quite what to do with. Well, there is one category: “Graduates of the Harvard Law School who prove that a law school education equips you to do any damn thing you put your mind to.”