Colleen Sloan, PhD, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has received the Outstanding Contributions to Practice in Trauma Psychology award from Division 56, the Trauma Psychology division of the American Psychological Association. The honor recognizes psychologists whose work has made a distinguished contribution to clinical practice through the development of effective interventions, advances in practice theory, or a sustained body of work that improves trauma-focused care. Sloan was recognized at the division’s annual meeting for a career combining direct treatment, clinical supervision, professional training, program development, and advocacy for patients whose mental-health needs have historically been underserved.
Trauma psychology addresses the psychological and physiological consequences of exposure to events that overwhelm a person’s ability to cope. These consequences can include post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, emotional dysregulation, dissociation, and difficulties with trust or relationships. Evidence-based trauma treatments are designed to reduce these symptoms through carefully structured clinical techniques rather than through general supportive counseling alone. Sloan’s work has focused on delivering and expanding these interventions in real-world health-care settings, while also helping clinicians understand how trauma treatment can be adapted without compromising scientific rigor or patient safety.
Sloan is a licensed clinical psychologist, clinician-scholar, and leader at the VA Boston Healthcare System, where she has worked for more than a decade in trauma-focused mental-health care. She serves as director of the system’s APA-accredited Psychology Internship Training Program, overseeing 18 psychology interns distributed across 12 clinical rotations. Her responsibilities include coordinating training experiences, working with clinical supervisors, and helping ensure that early-career psychologists develop competence in assessment, psychotherapy, ethics, research-informed practice, and interdisciplinary care. Training programs of this scale play a central role in translating psychological science into routine services for Veterans and their families.
Her clinical practice is based within the Women’s Trauma Recovery Team, where she provides evidence-based treatment for PTSD and other trauma-related conditions. She also supervises psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows as they gain experience working with complex clinical presentations. PTSD can involve intrusive memories or nightmares, avoidance of reminders, persistent negative beliefs, emotional numbing, irritability, hypervigilance, and exaggerated startle responses. Modern trauma-focused therapies aim to alter the mechanisms that keep these symptoms active, including avoidance learning and the perception that traumatic memories remain an immediate threat even when the person is currently safe.
Among the approaches in which Sloan has particular expertise is prolonged exposure, a trauma-focused psychotherapy that uses repeated, controlled engagement with trauma memories and avoided situations. The treatment is based on learning principles: when a patient encounters a memory or situation without experiencing the expected catastrophe, the brain can update predictions about danger. Over time, this process may weaken avoidance and allow more flexible responses to reminders. Prolonged exposure is delivered according to a structured protocol and requires careful assessment, preparation, monitoring, and attention to the patient’s individual circumstances. Sloan’s work also includes dialectical behavior therapy, which combines behavioral change strategies with skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness.
The combination of trauma-focused therapy and dialectical behavior therapy can be especially relevant for patients whose PTSD is accompanied by intense emotional instability, self-harm risk, or difficulty managing overwhelming states. Rather than treating trauma symptoms as isolated problems, clinicians may need to address the behavioral and physiological processes that interfere with treatment participation. Skills-based methods can help patients remain present during distress, while trauma-focused procedures directly target the memories and meanings associated with the traumatic experience. Sloan’s clinical and scholarly work has examined how established treatments can be applied responsively to patients with varied histories, identities, medical needs, and social circumstances.
A major theme of Sloan’s career has been culturally responsive mental-health care. Her areas of focus include LGBTQ+ health, women’s health, and the adaptation of evidence-based interventions for marginalized populations. Trauma symptoms do not occur in a social vacuum: discrimination, stigma, barriers to care, minority stress, and previous negative experiences with institutions can influence both risk and recovery. Culturally responsive treatment does not mean abandoning standardized clinical methods. Instead, it requires clinicians to understand how identity and context shape the meaning of symptoms, the experience of safety, the therapeutic relationship, and a patient’s ability to access or remain in care. Sloan has published and presented nationally and internationally on these issues.
At VA Boston, Sloan has held leadership positions intended to strengthen care for Veterans, improve clinical training, and support staff. She previously chaired the facility’s Interdisciplinary Transgender Treatment Team and served as its first LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator. She now leads the LGBTQ+ Health track within the VA Boston Clinical Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, helping prepare advanced trainees to provide competent and affirming care. She also chairs the Psychology Committee for Meaningful Engagement, a role connected to efforts to improve the experience of Veterans and employees within the health-care system. Her institutional work reflects an understanding that clinical outcomes are influenced not only by individual therapy techniques but also by organizational culture and access to appropriate services.
Sloan’s professional leadership extends beyond VA Boston. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, a major professional organization devoted to behavioral and cognitive approaches to mental-health treatment. Across her clinical, educational, and administrative roles, her work addresses a central challenge in contemporary psychology: how to move treatments supported by research into diverse clinical settings while preserving their active therapeutic ingredients. The award from APA Division 56 places that effort within the broader development of trauma psychology, a field increasingly focused on precision, inclusivity, and the practical delivery of effective care.
Sloan received her undergraduate, master’s, and PhD degrees from the University of Georgia. Her recognition highlights the expanding role of clinician-scholars in trauma care, where treatment, research, supervision, and health-system leadership are closely connected. By training new psychologists, treating PTSD and related conditions, supporting LGBTQ+ and women Veterans, and refining approaches for marginalized populations, she contributes to a model of trauma practice that is both technically grounded and attentive to patients’ lived realities. The American Psychological Association, which represents more than 190,000 scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students, identifies trauma psychology as a field in which high-quality practice can directly influence recovery for millions of people affected by traumatic experiences.
Subject of Research: Trauma psychology practice, PTSD treatment, evidence-based psychotherapy, LGBTQ+ health, women’s mental health, and culturally responsive clinical training
Keywords: Colleen Sloan, trauma psychology, PTSD, prolonged exposure, dialectical behavior therapy, Veterans’ mental health, LGBTQ+ health, women’s health, culturally responsive care, Boston University, VA Boston Healthcare System, American Psychological Association
