Dr. Kristine Burkman

Dr. Kristine Burkman is an Associate Clinical Professor with University of California, San Francisco and Attending Psychologist at the San Francisco VA Healthcare System. She specializes in the assessment and treatment of substance use disorders and traumatic stress with a focus on developmental and complex trauma as well as moral injury. Dr. Burkman uses an integrated approach with both individual and group psychotherapies, often pulling on psychodynamic theories to inform her conceptualization and flexibly applies evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) to best meet the needs of the veterans she treats in the Substance Use and PTSD (SUPT) Clinic. Her research interests have focused primarily on developing a novel treatment to address moral injury among combat veterans who have killed in war called the Impact of Killing (IOK). She is also currently examining whether race-based stress and trauma are adequately addressed by existing EBP for PTSD. Dr. Burkman has supervised dozens of psychology, psychiatry, and social work trainees and was recently awarded the American Psychological Association’s Division 18 Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Dr. Burkman and her colleagues recently published a book with Guilford Press entitled, Group Approaches to Treating Traumatic Stress: A Clinical Handbook. She is an advocate for flexible and tailored psychotherapy to address the myriad of challenges often confronted among those struggling with addiction and traumatic stress.

Learning objectives:

1. Identify various trauma profiles (e.g. complex trauma vs. PTSD) and how that may inform treatment selection
2. Summarize the pros and cons of using a phase-based approach with trauma survivors
3. Describe common group psychotherapy dynamics that arise when working with trauma survivors