Pioneer PTSD professor one of Time's 100

'Time' 100 list honors Penn prof.

by Melanie Lei
Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 8:53 pm


When Penn professor of clinical psychology Edna Foa received an e-mail from Time magazine telling her that she was on this year’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list, she was surprised, to say the least.

“I thought that someone was pulling my leg,” she said.

Although she was a fairly frequent reader of Time, she had never bought a Time 100 issue. “I thought that it was mostly movie stars and basketball players and politicians.”

But according to her colleagues at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety — which Foa directs — the recognition is well deserved.

Thirty years ago, before the term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was used in mental health discourse, Foa was wondering about how individuals processed disturbing and distressing events.

Her curiosity eventually led to groundbreaking therapy for PTSD patients in a treatment called prolonged exposure. The technique has two components: patients relive traumatic experiences in their imagination and expose themselves to real-life distressing situations. After repeated exposure, patients use emotional processing in order to desensitize their reactions of anxiety.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is now using prolonged exposure to treat PTSD patients, thanks to Foa’s treatment program.
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