Naomi Halpern

Director, C.Q.S.W. (UK), Grad. Cert. Human Rights, Fellow ISSTD

For over thirty years Naomi has demonstrated her commitment to assist and enhance the quality of life of people who have experienced severe trauma, abuse and disadvantaged life situations.

Naomi trained as a social worker in the UK. Early in her career she worked with children in emergency care, homeless youth, and convicted offenders in government and NGO’s, providing advocacy, psychosocial education, recreational opportunities, skills training, supervision and counselling.

In 1987, Naomi went into partnership with Susan Henry at The Delphi Centre, now known as Delphi Training and Consulting where she developed expertise in psychotherapy for complex and developmental trauma.

Naomi provides clinical consultation for post traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorders and related comorbidity, for mental health professionals working with survivors of sexual abuse, rape, gender based violence, torture and other trauma. She has a wealth of experience working with people across cultures, socioeconomic groups, faiths and sexual orientation.

A skilled speaker and trainer, Naomi has presented her work in complex and developmental trauma and related comorbidity, vicarious trauma, resilience building and work-place wellbeing in Australia - Denmark - Germany - New Zealand - United States. She provides consultation and training to organizations including: 

 

A founding member of The Australian Association of Trauma and Dissociation Inc. in 1992 (amalgamated with the Australasian Association of Traumatic Stress Studies in 1996) she served on the Executive Committee and Conference Committee from 1991 – 1996, and as Treasurer from 1992 – 1995.

She is a founding member and spokesperson for an action group for victims of white collar crime. She is an advocate for victims of deceptive and misleading financial advice, providing submissions and testimony to senate committees and other inquiries. Naomi has been an invited speaker at financial industry forums regarding the impact of white collar crime, the changes needed in the industry and legislation. She works closely with parliamentarians across political parties and independents, as well as the media and is frequently contacted for commentary. 

Naomi is Chair of the upcoming Regional Conference of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation to be held in Melbourne 19 - 21 Novermber 2021. 

Publications

Ross, C. A. & Halpern, N. (2009) Trauma Model Therapy: A Treatment Approach for Trauma, Dissociation and Complex Comorbidity, Manitou Communications Inc. 

Somer, E., Soffer-Dudek, N., Ross, C. A., & Halpern, N. (2017) Maladaptive daydreaming: Proposed diagnostic criteria and their assessment with a structured clinical interview. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4(2), 176-189 

Somer, E., Somer, L., Halpern, N. (2019) Representations of maladaptive daydreaming and the self: A qualitative analysis of drawings, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 63, (2019) 102-110 

Halpern, N. (2019) Part Two 'Survival Responses', in (author) Varney, K., Mum's The Word, Karen Varney and Ocean Reeve Publishing, Australia, pp 106-110 

Awards

2017 - Fellow: International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.  

Advisory Board Member

Hecht Trauma Institute, California Southern University 

Research

Collaborating Researcher at the International Consortium for Maladaptive Daydreaming Research, Haifa University, Israel

Maladaptive Daydreaming Research Laboratory 

Invited Reviewer

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice