Luísa Sales is a Psychiatrist (MD), Head of the Psychiatry
Department at the Military Hospital of Coimbra,
and Didactic Therapist at the Portuguese Society of
Psychodrama.She is associate researcher at CES
(Center for Social Sciences – University of Coimbra).
She co-founded the Trauma Center (2008) and she
coordinated the Trauma Observatory/CES from 2010
to 2023. She was member of the ESTSS board of
directors from 2011 to 2015.

Her scientific interests focus on psychiatric
and psychosocial interventions in crises, Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD), and psychopathological
syndromes in war veterans. She directs therapeutic
Psychodrama groups for PTSD victims and specializes
in Psychiatry of Catastrophe and Crisis Intervention.
She participates in European research projects developing
psychosocial and therapeutic networks for crisis
intervention. She coordinated the team of psychiatrists
for the project “Children of the Colonial Wars:
postmemory and representations” (CES/FCT)
and the Portuguese researchers team in the European
project ADJUST.


She has published several papers on PTSD, medical
reparation, therapeutic interventions,
and intergenerational transmition of trauma.
She organized and published the book Psiquiatria
de Catástrofe e Intervenção na Crise (Almedina, 2007),
She also organized and coordinated, in Portugal, the
European Certification Courses in Psychotraumatology
(ESTSS).