Biography
Stuart B. Kleinman, M.D. is a psychiatrist certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry, and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Kleinman possesses specialized expertise in the field of Traumatic Stress. He has served as Medical Director of the Crime Victims Center, a not-for-profit mental health center where he oversaw the treatment of those suffering from the consequences of traumas suffered during adulthood and childhood, as an independent consultant to the New York State Crime Victims Board, and as an independent consultant to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, Special Victims Bureau, assessing the potential psychological impact upon children of confronting their alleged abusers at trial. In his over 30 years of private practice, Dr. Kleinman has treated individuals suffering from particularly severe and complex post-traumatic conditions.
Dr. Kleinman has evaluated the psychological consequences of a wide array of traumatic experiences, including Asian piracy, Middle Eastern terrorism, urban sexual assault, and clergy sexual abuse, and has written about stress responses in peer reviewed articles and a leading Forensic Psychiatry textbook. He founded, and was the long-standing chairperson of, the Committee on Trauma and Stress of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, and both teaches a year-long seminar regarding the appropriate methodology of assessing emotional distress damage claims to psychiatrists training in Forensic Psychiatry in the Columbia-Weill Cornell Forensic Psychiatry fellowship program, and lectures regarding employment discrimination to those training in the region’s Forensic Psychiatry fellowship programs. In 2016, he helped conduct a training program at the International Criminal Court concerning the intersection between traumatic stress and aspects of criminal law.
Dr. Kleinman’s longtime experience working with those who have suffered traumatic and related life events particularly provides him with a deep and nuanced appreciation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the use and misuse of this diagnosis.
Dr. Kleinman has consulted extensively in both civil and criminal matters, including regarding the impact of workplace harassment and discrimination, work-related disability claims, testamentary capacity, and the psychological make-up of perpetrators of violent and non-violent acts. He annually lectures at the Mt. Sinai, Icahn School of Medicine regarding psychiatric disability.
Dr. Kleinman worked for approximately ten years at the Bellevue Hospital Forensic Psychiatry Clinic, examining well over 1,000 individuals regarding competency to stand trial, and pre- and post-sentencing issues, and for over 30 years has consulted to attorneys and courts, the latter as an appointed independent expert, regarding a broad range of issues, such as the psychology of alleged terrorists, the mental state of defendants during legal proceedings and at the time of alleged criminal conduct, the ways in which those who have been sexually assaulted may in the immediate aftermath behave, and the psychology of perpetrators of ‘white collar’ crime.
Dr. Kleinman received his medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. He subsequently trained in Psychiatry at the Pennsylvania Hospital, in Psychiatry and Law at the Center for Social-Legal Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, and in Forensic Psychiatry at New York University/Bellevue Hospital.