Barbara Rothbaum

Barbara Rothbaum is a psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. She is a professor in the Psychiatry department and a pioneer in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders. Rothbaum is head of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program (TARP) at Emory as well as the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. In the mid-1990s she founded a virtual exposure therapy company called Virtually Better, Inc. This company treats patients with anxiety disorders, addictions, pain, and the like using virtual reality instead of the actual place or scenario. It also allows the therapist to control the environment. She also played a key role in the development of the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Rothbaum was president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Her term spanned 2004 to 2005.