Guest: Richard P. Kluft, M.D., PhD.
Richard P. Kluft, M.D., Ph.D., practices psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and medical hypnosis in Bala Cynwyd, PA. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine. He serves on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he is a Waiver Training Analyst, and on the faculty of the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance.
He has published over 260 scientific papers and book chapters. Most of these papers concerned trauma, dissociation, dissociative disorders, therapeutic impasses, boundary violations, hypnosis, and psychoanalysis. His recent book, Shelter from the Storm (2013), explorating a compassionate approach to the abreaction of trauma, won the 2013 Written Media Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. His edited books are Childhood Antecedents of Multiple Personality, Treating Victims of Sexual Abuse, and Incest-Related Syndromes of Adult Psychopathology. He and Catherine G. Fine, Ph.D., co-edited Clinical Perspectives on Multiple Personality Disorder. Dr. Kluft was Editor-in-Chief of the journal DISSOCIATION for ten years. He is currently Clinical Forum Editor of the International Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis and Advisory Editor of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. He has presented over 1,000 scientific papers and workshops.
He was a co-founder and an early President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. He has been President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, and International Conference Chair of the International Society of Hypnosis. He has received numerous awards for his published research and his clinical and teaching contributions. These include four Erickson Awards for the best scientific paper of the year in hypnosis, and the 2019 Ernest R. Hilgard Award for the best paper addressing the history of hypnosis. The Journal of Trauma and Dissociation has established the Richard P. Kluft, M.D. Award to honor its best scientific paper of the year. He has held several visiting professorships.
He was the Director of the Dissociative Disorders Program at The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital for 8 years. He has extensive experience in treating victims of sexual exploitation by psychotherapists and has served as an expert witness in several malpractice cases involving boundary violations. He also has served as an expert witness in cases in which the diagnosis of dissociative disorders or matters of memory were major issues, including those involving murder and serial murder charges. Dr. Kluft served as a consultant to the Dreamworks and Showtime series, “The United States of Tara.” He was featured in the Showtime documentary, “What Is DID? With Richard P. Kluft, M.D,” which won the 2009 Media Award of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.
He has a second career as a writer of novels and short stories. He is the author of three novels Good Shrink/Bad Shrink (2014), An Obituary to Die For (2016) and A Sinister Subtraction (2019), and a novella, How Fievel Stole the Moon: A Tale for Sweet Children and Sour Scholars (2014).