Jon Elhai (born 1972 in Baltimore, Maryland) is Distinguished Professor of clinical psychology at the

University of Toledo The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a Public university, public research university in Toledo, Ohio, United States. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, ...

. Elhai is known for being an expert in the assessment and diagnosis of

Posttraumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a Psychological trauma, traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster ...

(PTSD), forensic psychological assessment of PTSD, and detection of fabricated/malingered PTSD; as well as in internet addictions.

Academic career

Elhai earned his B.A. in Psychology from the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

in 1994. He earned his M.S. in Clinical Psychology in 1996 and his Ph.D. in 2000 from

Nova Southeastern University Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a Private university, private research university in Florida with its main campus in Fort Lauderdale-Davie, Florida, Davie, Florida, United States. The university consists of 14 colleges, offering over ...

. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in PTSD at the

Medical University of South Carolina The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is a public medical school in Charleston, South Carolina. It opened in 1824 as a small private college aimed at training physicians and has since established hospitals and medical facilities acros ...

and Charleston Veterans Affairs Medical Center. In 2003, he was awarded the Chaim Danieli Young Professional Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. In 2007, he was awarded the Samuel J. and Anne G. Beck Award for outstanding early career research in personality assessment from the Society for Personality Assessment.

Research

Elhai's research on PTSD has focused on such issues as assessment and diagnostic questions, psychopathology and symptom structure, co-occurring mental disorders, and psychological treatment issues. Elhai is particularly known for examining the detection of fabricated PTSD using psychological assessment instruments such as the

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. A version for adolescents also exists, the MMPI-A, and was first published in 1992. Psychologists and other ment ...

-2, and

Trauma symptom inventory The Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) is a psychological evaluation/assessment instrument that taps symptoms of Posttraumatic stress disorder and other posttraumatic emotional problems. It was originally published in 1995 by its developer, John Briere ...

For example, he developed the Fptsd scale of the

-2 as a means to detect fabricated PTSD, which has demonstrated modest success. One of Elhai's particularly well-known scientific articles involved an examination of Vietnam combat military records. Specifically, because of anecdotes describing isolated cases of Americans falsely claiming to have served in combat during the Vietnam War and to suffer from PTSD as a result, B. Christopher Frueh, Elhai and collaborators examined the official military records of individuals presenting to the PTSD Clinic of the Charleston (South Carolina) Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in order to systematically evaluate the prevalence of fraudulently reported Vietnam combat exposure in 100 consecutively presenting individuals. The authors found evidence of some fraudulent cases: most alarming, 32% served in Vietnam but had no documentation of combat exposure, 3% served in the military but not in Vietnam, and 2% never served in the military. Although the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of the Inspector General subsequently supported these results in their own study, others have challenged the use of official military records as an infallible method of corroborating combat exposure in support of a PTSD diagnosis. Nonetheless, the paper by Frueh, Elhai et al. continues to generate research and debate on the veracity of veterans' reports of combat exposure. Elhai is also known for establishing the prevalence of using standardized instruments of traumatic event exposure and PTSD among traumatic stress clinicians and researchers. More recently, Elhai has investigated research questions in Cyberpsychology, in particular the study of problematic smartphone use. He directs th
University of Toledo‘s Cyberpsychology and Internet Addictions Research Lab

References

Bibliography

* Reyes, G., Elhai, J. D., & Ford, J. D. (Eds.) (2008). ''Encyclopedia of psychological trauma''. (John Wiley & Sons)

External links

* http://www.jon-elhai.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Elhai, Jon 1972 births American clinical psychologists Living people University of Toledo faculty

Academic career

Research

See also

References

Bibliography

External links