Anke Ehlers (born 11 January 1957) is a German psychologist and expert in

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats o ...

(PTSD). She is a Fellow of the major science academies of the UK and Germany. She currently works at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowships are research fellowships awarded to scientists who are recognised by the Wellcome Trust as having "international standing with an established track record in research at the highest level." Awards prov ...

and Professor of Experimental Psychopathology. With husband David M. Clark, she developed a cognitive model for PTSD. Therapy she and others based on that model is strongly recommended for treating PTSD by the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

. Anke's research has shown that it is a common problem among emergency medical workers, and that a commonly used therapy for PTSD, psychological debriefing, has little provable therapeutic value.

Professional career

Ehlers studied psychology at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

and the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-W� ...

, earning a diploma from Tübingen in 1983. She finished her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1985, and earned a habilitation from the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

in 1990. While finishing her Ph.D., Ehlers worked at Stanford University from 1984 to 1985 as assistant director of the Laboratory for Clinical Psychopharmacology and Psychophysiology. After an assistant professorship at the

, she became a full professor at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in 1991. She moved to Oxford as Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow in 1993. While here, she lead authored the paper ''A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder'' in 1999. She moved to King's College London in 2000. While here she led a group of people that developed a therapy based her and Clark's model. She returned to Oxford as Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Experimental Psychopathology in 2012; she retains a visiting position at King's College London.

Awards and honours

In 2004 she was elected a Fellow of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...

. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2010 and is also a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

.Academia Europaea member profile
retrieved 2013-01-23. In 2018 she was appointed Senior Investigator at the UK's

National Institute for Health and Care Research The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "im ...

(NIHR).

Personal life

She was born in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. She is married to her colleague David M. Clark..

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ehlers, Anke 1957 births German psychologists English psychologists German women psychologists British women psychologists University of Tübingen alumni Academic staff of the University of Marburg Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows Academic staff of the University of Göttingen Academics of King's College London Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Members of Academia Europaea NIHR Senior Investigators Living people Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)