ISTSS 42nd Annual Meeting
The ISTSS Annual Meeting will take place September 23-26, 2026, in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
The ISTSS Annual Meeting is a global forum for professionals and researchers dedicated to understanding and addressing the impact of trauma. We bring together diverse perspectives to advance scientific knowledge, develop effective treatments, and inform public policy. By bridging the gap between research and practice, we aim to improve the lives of those affected by traumatic stress worldwide.
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Keynote Speakers:
Mary-Frances O'Connor, PhD
Olympian on how to reach your potential every day
The Neuroscience of Grief: How We Learn From Love and Loss
Using an integrative view of clinical psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Dr. O’Connor explores grieving as a learning process, describing how the brain is critical in understanding that a loved one has died, updating one’s view of the world while carrying the absence of this person. Cognitive neuroscience can help clarify the “why” of grief—why it takes so long, and is so painful. Dr. O’Connor explains that older stage models of grief are no longer used and offers a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning. In addition, she recounts how empirical research has helped to define prolonged grief disorder (previously called complicated grief) and how targeted psychotherapy is an effective treatment for this disabling condition.
Biography
Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona Department of Psychology, where she directs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab. She earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona in 2004 and following a faculty appointment at UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, she returned to the University of Arizona in 2012. She served for three years as Director of Clinical Training in the Psychology Department. Her research program focuses on the wide-ranging emotional responses to bereavement. In particular, she investigates the neurobiological and psychophysiological aspects that vary between individual grief responses via functional neuroimaging, immune, and endocrine analysis. Exclusively represented by BrightSight Speakers, Dr. O’Connor also researches difficulties adapting following the death of a loved one, termed prolonged grief (newly included in the revised DSM-5). She believes that a clinical science approach toward the experience and physiology of grief can improve psychological treatment. Dr. O’Connor’s book, The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss (2022; HarperOne) has garnered praise from peers and literary critics alike and has led to speaking engagements around the world. She wrote a follow-up called The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing (2025).
In addition to her outstanding record of scholarship, Dr. O’Connor is a highly proficient and beloved teacher and mentor, honored with the Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP) “Outstanding Mentor Award” in 2014. In 2020, she organized an international multidisciplinary research group called the Neurobiology of Grief International Network (NOGIN). Under her leadership, the group has held three international conferences supported by the National Institute on Aging. Dr. O’Connor is a highly sought-after speaker, giving numerous talks and workshops to community organizations around the world, including in-service trainings to healthcare professionals and volunteers at hospices. She has authored research papers published in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals, from American Journal of Psychiatry to NeuroImage to Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Dr. O’Connor’s work has been discussed in the New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Scientific American.
Mary-Frances is represented exclusively by the BrightSight Group
Invited Speakers:
Advancements in the Treatment of PTSD by the Strong Star Consortium: Two Decades of Progress
Over the past 2 decades the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience (STRONG STAR Consortium) has supported over 30 clinical trials to develop and evaluate the efficacy of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapies for combat-related PTSD in military personnel. These clinical trials have evaluated Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy, Written Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, and Prolonged Exposure Therapy. The results of the initial clinical trials demonstrated these treatments were efficacious for the treatment of combat-related PTSD, but the outcomes were not as good as previous studies with civilians. Subsequent clinical trials evaluated ways to modify the standard treatment protocols to enhance outcomes. One example is the use of compressed or massed treatment protocols where treatment sessions are completed on a daily basis. The results of these studies found even greater reductions in PTSD symptoms. Ongoing clinical trials are evaluating how these treatments can be further improved by combining them with medications or medical devices. This symposium will review the results of clinical trials for combat-related PTSD supported by the STRONG STAR Consortium over the past 2 decades and provide an update on ongoing clinical trials.
Steffany Fredman, PhD
Terence Keane, PhD
Brian Marx, PhD
Alan Peterson, PhD
Patricia Resick, PhD
Biography
Dr. Steffany Fredman is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Psychology at The Pennsylvania State University and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Fredman conducts research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related conditions within a couple/family context, including ways that partner involvement in treatment optimizes outcomes for individuals with PTSD and their loved ones. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Fredman is the co-developer of cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD (CBCT for PTSD; Monson & Fredman, 2012), a couple-based treatment for PTSD that has been tested in community, veteran, and active duty military populations. Dr. Fredman is also the lead developer of the Significant Others’ Responses to Trauma Scale (SORTS), a widely used measure of partner accommodation of patient PTSD symptoms.
Biography
Terence M. Keane, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry (Clinical Psychology) and Assistant Dean for VA Research at Boston University; for the past twenty-five years Keane has served as the Associate Chief of Staff for Research & Development at VA Boston Healthcare System, the largest research program in all of VA. Since 1989, he’s directed the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)-Behavioral Science Division a program with a strong focus on assessment, psychological treatment development, and the genetic underpinnings of this condition. With many colleagues and trainees, Dr. Keane has published some 450 articles, books, and chapters on the assessment and treatment of PTSD. For the past 46 consecutive years his program of trauma research has been supported by federal funding agencies, such as VA, NIH, DoD, and SAMHSA. In 2013, Keane was named the Co-Principal Investigator of the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD, an initiative supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to improve the care of both active-duty military and combat veterans with PTSD through the conduct of multi-site clinical trials of psychotherapy and medications in these populations. Over the years, his contributions to the field have been recognized by many national and international honors including the 2013 Distinguished Research Contributions to Clinical Psychology Award from APA’s Society of Clinical Psychology and a similar award from the Canadian Psychological Association in 2015. In 2011, Dr. Keane received two honorary doctorates for “his major role in opening the field of psychological trauma to scientific inquiry”. In 2015 he was named the recipient of the John Blair Barnwell Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the highest national award for those engaged in Clinical Research. In terms of national and international leadership, Keane has served as President of multiple professional societies over the course of his career. His commitment to education and training future generations of investigators is exemplified in his role as Program Director for a NIMH funded T-32 training program for thirty years.
Biography
Dr. Marx is the Deputy Director of and Senior Psychologist Clinician Investigator in the Behavioral Science Division of the National Center for PTSD and corresponding PI for the VA CSRD side of the Suicide Prevention Research Impact Network (SPRINT). He is also a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. He is currently the PI/Co-PI/Site PI of three federally funded studies focused on testing the efficacy of treatments for PTSD, PTSD and comorbid suicidal thoughts and behaviors, or examining the course of PTSD, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other comorbid conditions within the context of a simulated clinical trial. Other ongoing research continues to use data collected other studies previously funded by VA and DoD to examine risk factors for suicidality, development and testing of new measures of psychopathology and functioning, neurocognitive correlates and predictors of PTSD and suicidality, and understanding moderators and predictors of treatment outcomes among Veterans and Service Members. He is the lead author on the Inventory of Psychosocial Functioning and co-author of all the most commonly used measures of PTSD diagnostic status and symptom severity and regularly conduct research on the best methods to assess PTSD and symptom change. Dr. Marx's research program has translated NCPTSD and VA’s national research goals and priorities into specific scientific project activities of significant complexity and sufficient sustainability.
Biography
Alan L. Peterson, PhD, ABPP, is a Professor and the Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio Long School of Medicine. He is also the Director of the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience (STRONG STAR Consortium) and a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. STRONG STAR includes over 150 research collaborators and 50 institutions worldwide. Over the past 18 years, STRONG STAR investigators have collectively secured more than $250 million in research funding to support over 120 projects. Dr. Peterson retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2005 after 21 years of active duty service including deployments in support of Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. He has clinical and research expertise in the areas of behavioral medicine, psychological trauma, and resiliency. He has published 9 books, more than 425 scientific manuscripts, and given over 700 presentations and invited addresses at national and international meetings.
Biography
Patricia A. Resick, Ph.D., ABPP is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor, Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Resick’s specialty is in understanding and treating the effects of traumatic events, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 1988, she developed Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD, a short evidence-based treatment and has overseen multiple clinical trials. The treatment manual for CPT has been translated into 12 languages and has been formally disseminated throughout the VA in the US, Canada and Australia, and now the Democratic Republic of Congo. CPT is considered a first line therapy for PTSD. Dr. Resick’s research was continuously funded for 40 years; she has published almost 400 articles and chapters and 12 books on PTSD including the self-help book “Getting Unstuck from PTSD: Using Cognitive Processing Therapy to Guide Your Recovery” and a second edition of the best-selling treatment manual “Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A Comprehensive Therapist Manual”. She served as the President of both the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. She has won research and mentoring awards as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Trauma Division (56) of the American Psychological Association, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.