Rosemary Masters led the team that created the eSCAPe protocol.
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 learning about the work of Judith Herman, and Bessel van der Kolk. She immediately recognized that approaching mental health disorders through the paradigm of traumatic stress would revolutionize the practice of psychotherapy.
A decade later, Rosemary encountered the work of Stephen Porges. Porges asserts, as do most experts in psychological trauma, that when the human brain perceives danger, the neural circuits that allow us to speak, hear, even think logically, go off line. Faced with threats to our survival, we humans default to flight and fight strategies. For Rosemary, what was truly groundbreaking about Porges’ work was his insight that successful efforts to calm an agitated person require us to communicate to the agitated person that things are safe enough to pause and think through options. The purpose of eSCAPe’s four interventions is to do just that.
In 2002, Rosemary became the Founding Director of the Trauma Studies Center as a Division of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Since its beginning the Center has offered 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 2010 and 2015, 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 where she focuses on the Institute’s mission of identifying and introducing new approaches to treating underserved mental health populations. She continues to consult and teach the eSCAPe Protocol to frontline workers and their supervisors.
