Received her doctorate in clinical/community psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1984 after an internship at the Yale Child Study Center where she was a Ziegler Fellow in Child Development and Social Policy. Dr. Straus received specialized postdoctoral training at Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in family violence and child forensic psychology. In 1986, she developed and obtained grant funding for the first, and enduring, hospital-based domestic violence advocacy program—Advocacy for Women and Kids in Emergencies (AWAKE)—providing services to women victims of domestic violence and their children at Children’s Hospital.
Her research interests have long focused on the treatment of adverse childhood experiences. Her most recent explorations concern the impact of technology on family life and therapeutic interventions, attachment relationships in adolescence and emerging adulthood and interpersonal, developmentally-informed interventions for traumatized children and adolescents. She has written five books including: Abuse and Victimization across the Lifespan; Violence in the Lives of Adolescents; No-Talk Therapy for Children and Adolescents; Adolescent Girls in Crisis: Intervention and Hope; and Treating Trauma in Adolescents: Development, Attachment, and the Therapeutic Relationship. Her forthcoming co-authored book, The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships, will be published by Guilford Press in 2021; she’s also developing a co-regulation workbook of activities for caregivers and distressed kids to be published by PESI, Inc in the next year. Dr. Straus has authored many journal articles and presents workshops in the US and internationally on topics including child and family trauma, development, and therapy.
Before joining Antioch New England, Dr. Straus was instructor and clinical associate in the department of psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School where she directed the Kids In Transition Evaluation Service (KITES) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She is licensed in New Hampshire and in Vermont, where she maintains a small general private practice.
