Dr. Tinnin (1932-2014) had a successful 50-year career as a psychiatrist. He served tirelessly as the founder of two outpatient trauma clinics: Trauma Recovery Institute (1996-2006) and Intensive Trauma Therapy (2006-present). He and his wife, Linda Gantt, developed the Instinctual Trauma Response™ method from early clinical trials at Chestnut Ridge Hospital at West Virginia University (Morgantown, West Virginia) and the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Administration Medical Center (Clarksburg, West Virginia).

In the 1970s, Dr. Tinnin had a private practice in psychiatry in Laurel, Maryland. He was active in the politics of mental health and instrumental in getting the state of Maryland to pass a law requiring that general hospitals have psychiatric units at a time when even the most prestigious hospital in the state was little more than a warehouse for seriously disturbed psychiatric patients.

After moving to West Virginia in 1979, Dr. Tinnin served as the medical director of a community mental health center. In 1984, he joined the faculty of the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at West Virginia University, serving as associate professor and professor. He began learning more about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an area that interested few people at the time.

Some cases that Dr. Tinnin saw in medical school stayed with him his entire life. He questioned the received wisdom of older doctors who did not comprehend how invasive medical procedures without anesthesia for babies could be traumatic. These doctors assumed the child’s nervous system was too immature to feel pain and, even if the child did feel it, he or she would not remember it. His clinical observations impelled Dr. Tinnin to work out procedures for dealing with early memories that were nonverbal but resulted in long-lasting and disturbing symptoms.

In 1992, Dr. Tinnin developed a Fellowship in Psychotraumatology in conjunction with WVU and the VA Medical Center. It was then that he began doing research on how to process traumatic events without reliving them including those in infancy and childhood.

After retiring from WVU in 1996 with the rank of professor emeritus, Dr. Tinnin established his own clinics, the Trauma Recovery Institute (TRI) (1996-2006) and Intensive Trauma Therapy (ITT) (2006-present), where he refined his ideas about effective, simple, and brief trauma treatment.

Dr. Tinnin wrote a number of professional papers and made over 200 national and international presentations. He and Linda authored The Instinctual Trauma Response and Dual Brain Dynamics (2014). Although Dr. Tinnin knew his health was failing, he continued to work on several projects until two weeks before his death. He was the driving force in making the

ITR™ method is available in digital form for survivors and therapists alike.

Dr. Tinnin was a strong supporter of the mental health emancipation and recovery movements. He devoted his life to collaborating with other professionals and spreading the good news that trauma can be easily and effectively healed.