Rosemary Masters is a co-developer of the eSCAPe Protocol.
Over a period of five years, she and Christine Alvarez, Director of the LaGuardia Community College’s EMT and Paramedic training program, were in dialogue with seasoned instructors, trainees and former emergency medical patients. The product of their collaboration was the eSCAPe protocol, a practical and effective training method based in neuropsychology, which teaches trainees in the emergency medical field how to calm terrified patients and their families.
Rosemary 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 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.
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 Judith Herman, and 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 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.
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 and teach the eSCAPe Protocol to frontline workers and their supervisors.
