Dr Bessel A. van der Kolk has worked with persons suffering from trauma-inflicted stress for 30 years. He is the director of a child and adult treatment and research center in Brookline, Massachusetts, US and serves as professor of psychiatry at the Universities of Boston and Havard.

Dr van der Kolk's newest book Traumatic Stress, edited together with Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth, describes the impact of trauma on the whole human being and analyzes factors affecting recovery.

Dr van der Kolk visited the center as trainer during the most recent year of its' operation. It was his goal to teach mental health practitioners to recognize complex post-trauma stress disorder and to treat those suffering from it.

Dr van der Kolk acted as a trainer at two seminars organized in fall 1998 by the Crisis Consultation and Education Center. The topics were Traumatic Stress and Trauma, Memory, and Dissociation.