Vedat Şar received his medical degree in Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in 1981(including general surgery internship in Kantonsspital Basel, Prof.Allgöwer). He got residency training in Hacettepe University Medical Faculty Hospital (Ankara) between 1981 and 1986. Following state service by Forensic and Military Hospitals in Istanbul (1986-1989), he was appointed to Istanbul University Department of Psychiatry in 1989, to serve as an associate professor (1990-1996) and full professor (1996-2014). Dr.Sar launched the Clinical Psychotherapy Unit (1993) and the Dissociative Disorders Program (1994) in the same department.  The countrywide referral center served thousands of traumatized patients (both inpatient and outpatient) under his directorship over two decades. Currently, Prof. Şar is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry in Koç University Medical School (and Training Hospital), a consultant psychiatrist in VKV American Hospital, and also in solo practice in Istanbul.

Beside general psychiatric service for three decades, Prof.Şar has trained medical students, interns, and psychiatry residents on trauma-related disorders and dissociation. He led numerious doctoral dissertations in psychiatry and forensic medicine, conducted several research projects, and supervised treatment of a large number of inpatients and outpatients.He continues to advise several research studies which are being conducted in collaborating institutions all over Turkey. 

Prof. Şar integrates dynamic psychotherapy with experiences and theoretical considerations derived from treatment of trauma-related conditions and dissociative disorders in his clinical practice. Having exposed to ideas of Erik Erikson and to psychoanalitic ego psychology in his early career, Prof.Şar has maintained his interest in various aspects of identity and its crises as a counterpoint in the background of his developing work. In 1990’ies, he started to integrate his insights on psychoanalitic self-psychology (served as visiting psychiatrist in Kantonsspital Basel, Prof.R.Battegay) and his simultaneously developing clinical work and research on childhood trauma and dissociation with this pre-existing long-term interest. Hence, Prof.Şar represents a tradition which puts formations and reformations of self-identity at the center of his theory, research, and practice, while he tries to deal in clinical aspects of the still only vaguely known area between individual and society and its psychopolitical extentions. He is certified in EMDR (since 1999) and hypnosis.

Prof.Şar has published more than two hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, special journal issues in Turkish, English,or German. His a former President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD)(2007-2008). Being a fellow member of ISSTD, he received the David Caul Memorial Award (1995 and 1999), the Morton Prince Scientific Achievement Award(2001 and 2010), the Cornelia Wilbur Award (2004), President’s Award (2010,2013, and 2021), Pierre Janet Writing Award (2014), and Lifetime Achievement Award (2015) presented by this Society. He served as International Director and board member of ISSTD between 1999-2002, as co-chair of the DSM-5 Research Planning Conferences on Dissociative Disorders of the ISSTD (2003-2008), and also as an official advisor to DSM-5 Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association (2009-2012). Dr.Şar was founding Chair of the Scientific Committee of ISSTD between 2012 and 2021. He is a founding member of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD), a former President of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) (2013-2015), and board member (2019-2021) of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry (WACP) currently. Prof.Şar sits in the Editorial Boards of Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, and Frontiers in Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation. Beyond numerous plenaries and workshops in Turkey, Prof. Şar has also presented in USA, Canada, Australia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Kroatia, the Netherlands, Italy, UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. He is married and has one child. Dr.Şar is fluent in Turkish, German and English.

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