
Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School. Dr. Speckhard has been working in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the 1980’s and has extensive experience working in Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. She was the chair of the NATO Human Factors & Medicine Research and Technology Experts Group (HFM-140/RTG) on the Psychosocial, Cultural and Organizational Aspects of Terrorism, served as the co-chair of the NATO-Russia Human Factors & Medicine Research Task Group on Social Sciences Support to Military Personnel Engaged in Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorism Operations and served on the NATO Human Factors & Medicine Research Task Group Moral Dilemmas and Military Mental Health Outcomes. She is a member of the United Nations Roster of Experts for the Terrorism Prevention Branch Office on Drugs and Crime and was previously awarded a Public Health Service Fellowship in the United States Department of Health & Human Services where she served as a Research Fellow. She has provided expert consultation to European and Middle Eastern governments as well as the U.S. Department of Defense regarding programs for prevention and rehabilitation of individuals committed to political violence and militant jihad. In 2006-2007 she worked with the U.S. Department of Defense to design and pilot test the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq. In 2002, she interviewed hostages taken in the Moscow Dubrovka Theater about their psychological responses and observations of the suicidal terrorists and did the same in 2005 with surviving hostages from the Beslan school take-over. Since 2002, she has collected more than four hundred research interviews of family members, friends, close associates and hostages of terrorists and militant jihadi extremists in Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Chechnya, Belarus, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium and France. Dr. Speckhard is the director of the Holocaust Survivors Oral Histories Project – Belarus, a project constructing the history of the Minsk Ghetto and Holocaust in Belarus through oral histories and archival research. She also researched traumatic stress issues in survivors of the Chernobyl disaster and has written about stress responses to toxic disasters. Dr. Speckhard worked with American expatriates after 9-11 (at SHAPE, NATO, the U.S. Embassy to Belgium and Mission to the EU) and conducted research on acute stress responses to terrorism in this population. She also studies psychological resilience to terrorism in various populations including American civilians, military and diplomats serving in Iraq under high threat security conditions. Dr. Speckhard co-directed the NATO Advanced Research Workshops - Ideologies of Terrorism: Understanding and Predicting the Social, Psychological and Political Underpinnings of Terrorism and Understanding and Addressing the Root Causes of Radicalization among Groups with an Immigrant Heritage in Europe and served on the NATO/Russia Counter-Terrorism Advisory Group. Dr. Speckhard consults to governments and lectures to security experts worldwide and frequently appears in the national and international media. She is the author of Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs”, Fetal Abduction: The True Story of Multiple Personalities and Murder, and Timothy Tottle’s Terrific Dream and co-author of Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEALs Journey to Coming out Transgender. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com
by Anne Speckhard
Rating: 4.1 ⭐
This is an account of traveling through the West Bank and Gaza, into the prisons of Iraq, down the alleyways of the Casablanca slums, to Chechnya, into the radicalized neighborhoods of Belgium, the UK, France and the Netherlands, of sitting with the hostages of Beslan and Nord Ost, and of talking to terrorists. Dr. Speckhard gives us the inside story of what puts vulnerable individuals on the terr
This is the story of Annette Morales Rodriguez, a hard-working single mother of three. It is also the story of Lara, a psychopathic killer who abducted another woman s fetus, killing both mother and baby.Unbeknownst to Annette, Lara is a part of her: a dissociative identity, or split personality, formed to help Annette deal with the sexual abuse she endured as a child. Highly protectiv
"I wonder where the water goes?" Timothy asks as he watches it disappear down the drain. After being tucked into bed by his mother, Timothy drifts into a dream filled sleep in which he returns to the bathtub-where he change sizes and rides his toy sailboat right down the drain! There he meets the bathtub water cleaning monsters who take him on a frantic frolic. Timothy and the monsters jump on all
by Anne Speckhard
Rating: 4.0 ⭐
Mubin Shaikh was born and raised in Toronto, Canada amidst twenty-first century, Western values. He attended public school. But at night, his parents insisted he also attend Islamic madrasa. Mubin joined the Canadian Army Cadets, used drugs, had sex and partied just like the other kids. He fit right in—until he didn’t.Going through an acute identity crisis at age nineteen, Mubin recommitted himsel
by Anne Speckhard
Rating: 5.0 ⭐
Mubin Shaikh was born and raised in Toronto, Canada amidst twenty-first century, Western values. He attended public school. But at night, his parents insisted he also attend Islamic madrasa. Mubin joined the Canadian Army Cadets, used drugs, had sex and partied just like the other kids. He fit right in - until he didn't. Going through an acute identity crisis at age nineteen, Mubin rec
Why would a “normal” American teen convert to Islam and then try to join a terrorist organization, and how do terrorists seduce women over the Internet and lure them into traveling thousands of miles to become their wives? These are the questions that internationally respected counter-terrorism expert and Georgetown University Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Security Studies asks in
by Anne Speckhard
"No Timothy, a snack will ruin your supper. Go and play! Your father will be home soon and then we'll eat," Timothy's mother says sending him out of the kitchen. Bored and hungry,Timothy throws himself down on the sofa where he begins to imagine the carpet turning into swirling blue water and the toys into hungry green crocodiles. "We're so hungry, so very hungry! We can't wait for our supper! If
The authors hadn’t intended to put themselves in danger but that’s what happened as they interviewed an unprecedented thirty-two battle-hardened defectors about the gritty details of life inside ISIS. With unparalleled breadth, depth and access, ISIS Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate offers a compelling view of ISIS from men, women and teens now in hiding, having escaped the most brutal te
Terrorism expert, Dr. Anne Speckhard, who has interviewed more than 800 terrorists, turns her attention to the deepening threat of domestic violent extremism in the U.S. Her unique ability to talk to terrorists and extremists, and draw out their very personal stories, offers readers rare insight into the human behind the hate.Culled from more than 50 in-depth interviews with current an
by Anne Speckhard
by Anne Speckhard