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.
PhD, University of Maryland, College Park
BA, Brown University, Providence, RI
Treating Trauma in Adolescents: Development, Attachment, and the Therapeutic Relationship 2017 book by Martha Straus, Guilford Press
This book presents an innovative and empathic approach to working with traumatized teens. It offers strategies for getting through to high-risk adolescents and for building a strong attachment relationship that can help get development back on track. Martha B. Straus draws on extensive clinical experience as well as cutting-edge research on attachment, developmental trauma, and interpersonal neurobiology. Vivid case material shows how to engage challenging or reluctant clients, implement interventions that foster self-regulation and an integrated sense of identity, and tap into both the teen’s and the therapist’s moment-to-moment emotional experience. Essential topics include ways to involve parents and other caregivers in treatment.
Straus, M. (May/June 2017). Being there: Inhabiting the moment with traumatized teens. Psychotherapy Networker, 41(3), 40-46.
Cragin CA, Straus MB, Blacker D, Tully LM and Niendam TA (2017) Early Psychosis and Trauma-Related Disorders: Clinical Practice Guidelines and Future Directions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8(33). doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00033
Straus, M. (2017). No-talk therapy for traumatized teens. In C. Malchoidi & D. Crenshaw (Eds.). What to do when children clam up in therapy. NY: Guilford.
Straus, M. (2015). Ten ways to help children feel less anxious. In K. Hansel (Ed.). Kinship parenting: Building a toolbox, fostering connections (pp. 202-206). Warren, NJ: EMK Press.
Straus, M (September/October, 2014). Getting unhooked. Psychotherapy Networker, 38(5), 32-37.
Straus, M. (May/June, 2014). Case commentary: Rush to judgment: Beware of the ADHD diagnosis. Psychotherapy Networker, 38(3), 56.