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Katherine Porterfield, Ph.D.

Ph.D. Staff psychologist, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture

Ph.D. Staff psychologist, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture

Kate Porterfield received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan, where she specialized in child and family treatment. She received the Power Fellowship at the University of Michigan to focus her clinical and research training on the needs of children who have suffered loss, either through death, divorce, or other trauma. Dr. Porterfield was a postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Child Study Center. In her work at Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture since 1999, Dr. Porterfield provides individual and family therapy to children, adolescents and adults and supervises trainees working with survivors of torture.

Dr. Porterfield has worked as a clinical evaluator on several cases of young people held in detention at Guantanamo Bay and frequently consults with attorneys handling cases involving torture and maltreatment.  She has also presented extensively in the New York area and nationally on topics such as the effects of war and refugee trauma on children, clinical work with traumatized refugee families, and the psychological effects of torture.  Dr. Porterfield is the Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Psychosocial Effects of War on Children Residing in the United States.

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