Background and Experience

Dr. Rando is an award-winning clinical psychologist, traumatologist, and thanatologist in Rhode Island, USA. She is the Clinical Director of The Institute for the Study and Treatment of Loss, which provides mental health services through psychotherapy, training/education, supervision, and consultation, and specializes in: loss and grief; traumatic stress; and the psychosocial care of persons with physical injury, serious acute medical conditions, or with chronic, life-threatening, or terminal illness, and their loved ones. Dr. Rando has consulted, conducted research, provided therapy, written, and lectured internationally in areas related to loss, grief, illness, injury, dying, death, bereavement, disaster, and trauma. She also has provided expert witness testimony in legal proceedings involving illness, injury, or death.

Dr. Rando also is the Clinical Director of Therese A. Rando Associates, Ltd. This is a multi-disciplinary team of experienced and licensed professionals, which provides outpatient mental health services to adults, adolescents, and children around a wide variety of psychological, behavioral, social, and physical issues and adjustment concerns.

Current professional foci include treatment of complicated mourning; loss of a child; the interface between posttraumatic stress and grief; anticipatory mourning; specialized intervention techniques in the treatment of traumatic bereavement; the integration of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) into intervention with grief and mourning; self-help after traumatic loss; and stress reactions of first responders.

Dr. Rando holds a doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of Rhode Island and has received advanced training in psychotherapy and in medical consultation-liaison psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University Medical School and University Hospitals of Cleveland. A former consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Hospice Education Program for Nurses, she developed its program for training hospice nurses to cope with loss, grief, and terminal illness. Her current research interests focus on the course of mourning after traumatic loss; construction of a self-help program for coping with the sudden death of a loved one; development of an integrated group intervention for traumatic loss survivors; and evaluation of an intervention program for traumatized first responders after critical incidents.

Since 2016, Dr. Rando has been the Clinical Director of The Traumatic Loss Seminar, an intensive four-day intervention for first responders coping with personal traumatic loss. It addresses their traumatic bereavement through the use of trained peer support; large and small group work; education about trauma, loss, coping, meaning making, self-medication issues, and family relationships; therapeutic ritual; medical massage; and personal one-on-one consultation with licensed mental health therapists familiar with law enforcement and public safety issues, posttraumatic stress, and the trauma recovery method of EMDR.

Publications

Dr. Rando has over 80 written works pertaining to the clinical aspects of thanatology. She is the author of Treatment of Complicated Mourning; How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies (chosen all-time "Best Book About Dealing With Grief After a Death" by New York Magazine); and Grief, Dying, and Death: Clinical Interventions for Caregivers; and is a co-author of Treating Traumatic Bereavement: A Practitioner's Guide (Winner, Second Place, of The American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Category). She is the editor of Clinical Dimensions of Anticipatory Mourning: Theory and Practice in Working with the Dying, Their Loved Ones, and Their Caregivers; Loss and Anticipatory Grief; and Parental Loss of a Child. She has been the Co-Editor of the Trauma and Loss Book Series for Brunner-Routledge Publishers. Currently, she is completing a book for the general public on coping with sudden, traumatic death, Coping With the Sudden Death of Your Loved One: A Self-Help Handbook for Traumatic Bereavement. Dr. Rando has also served for decades on the Editorial Boards of Death Studies and Omega.

National Media Resource Expert

Dr. Rando is a national media resource expert in loss, grief, illness, injury, dying, death, bereavement, disaster, and trauma for the American Psychological Association. She offers education to the public and consultation to members of the news and entertainment media on television and radio, in print, and online. Among her many media presentations, she has appeared on numerous television programs (e.g., "Dateline," CBS "This Morning," "Today Show," "Good Morning, America," and "The Oprah Winfrey Show") and has been interviewed on a variety of radio outlets (e.g., National Public Radio, "Voice of America" Radio, and Sirius Satellite Radio). Dr. Rando frequently provides commentary in the print media (e.g., The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report), and online.

Recognitions/Awards

Among the many recognitions for her accomplishments in the field of thanatology, Dr. Rando was the recipient of the Association for Death Education and Counseling's award for "Outstanding Contribution to the Study of Death, Dying, and Bereavement" and a recipient of its "Clinical Practice Award." She is also a grantee of its Lifetime Certification as "Certified Death Educator" and was awarded its designation of "Certified in Thanatology." She has received the Heart of Texas Hospice Foundation Award for "Distinguished Professional Contribution in the Field of Thanatology and Hospice-Related Studies" and was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Network on Personal Meaning "In Recognition of Her Outstanding Contribution to Thanatology and Grief Counseling." She was given "The Influential Leader Award in Grief and Loss Education and Practice" by The American Academy of Bereavement. Her book, How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies, was chosen all-time "Best Book About Dealing With Grief After a Death" by New York Magazine. Her co-authored book, Treating Traumatic Bereavement: A Practitioner's Guide was the Winner, Second Place, of The American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Category. In the area of traumatology, Dr. Rando was among the initial group of international experts elected to membership in the Green Cross Foundation Academy of Traumatology. She is a member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, becoming a Diplomate of that association and achieving designations of Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress and Board Certification in Bereavement Trauma.