My Story
Photo by Stella June Rose
By A.P. Saker
Two minutes in the gentle, stylish company of Dr. Michelle Roberts – arms tattooed in floral sleeves, long auburn hair, fashion-forward eyeglasses – and you sense the presence of a rare creature.
Then you learn she is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and groundbreaking psychotherapist applying the science of the mind to heal trauma and help women build happier lives. A moment more, in her peony garden with the greyhounds: You can be forgiven for concluding that destiny played an ace here.
But Dr. Roberts laughs at talk of fate. She assures you that she, too, has stumbled through the dark forest of heartache. Step by tentative step, she cleared a slow path through the pain, mining soul and science for answers, ways to brush herself off, reclaim her imagination and wholeness, and ways to live and love again. For Dr. Roberts, a story of loss offered the material to write something entirely new: Revolutionary research and a clinical practice devoted to helping women confront the overlooked trauma of relational abuse.
“When most people think of trauma, they see war, natural disasters, car wrecks,” she says. “But the most difficult traumas are inflicted by those we expect to love and protect us. Abuse or neglect as a child, deception in an adult relationship, and interpersonal violations are the ones that do the most damage, causing lasting changes in the areas of the brain responsible for regulating emotion, thought, and memory. This kind of trauma causes us to question the truths of our very being.”
Journalism: “The words and works are powerful.”
Dr. Roberts’ relentless work ethic arose from girlhood on a North Dakota wheat farm, where the demands of the seasons set the rules — working hard shielded her from the rising chaos of life with a troubled teenage mother. From youth, Roberts set her life course to understand, witness, and document the human condition in all its absurdity, pain, and complexity. The first in her family to go to college, Dr. Roberts ran through the door that journalism opened and earned a bachelor’s degree on a full scholarship at Arizona State University. She would be named the top student in her graduating class and the top college journalist in the country. Dr. Roberts earned a Master of Science degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University the following year.
Dr. Roberts rose quickly at The Times of Northwest Indiana, a regional paper on the outskirts of Chicago. In her early 20s, she wrote an investigative series that drew national attention to one of the first documented cases of environmental racism: City officials in East Chicago had allowed a toxic waste plant with a checkered safety record to expand around a small, primarily African-American neighborhood. Roberts’ series spurred federal and state housing authorities to relocate more than 30 families. The Chicago Sun-Times took notice and hired her to cover crime, the first woman and youngest person in the paper’s history on that beat.
The job gave Dr. Roberts a unique vantage on the human spectacle, taking notes on psychopathology and its devastation. She covered the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace, the arrest of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and the O.J. Simpson trial verdict, among other notorious cases. Dirty cops, warring gang members, serial killers, crooked politicians, grieving mothers, a Chicago mobster thought responsible for more than a dozen hits; Dr. Roberts’ editors quickly learned that people would talk to the young reporter when they wouldn’t talk to anyone else.
The Oregonian in Portland then brought Roberts aboard as an investigative reporter, and within two years, she was drawing national attention to her work. Chosen by former First Lady Rosalyn Carter as a journalism fellow, Roberts used the platform and resources to reveal longstanding abuse and inhumane practices at Oregon’s 145-year-old psychiatric hospital, famous as the set of the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The state closed the hospital, and Oregonian editorials earned the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing based on her investigation. In 2007, she shared the Oregonian’s Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.
“Against relentless deadline pressure on countless occasions, she has calmly asked the critical question, made the essential observation, found the perfect turn of phrase, insisted on only the best, most true work,” wrote one of Dr. Roberts’ former editors. “Michelle’s portfolio speaks for itself. The words and works are powerful, but there is a hidden artistry that only those of us who’ve worked closely with her know. I am talking about Michelle’s ability to see real people in stories comprehend their predicaments and needs, connect with them and help them reveal their own truth.”
In 20 years of journalism, Dr. Roberts often wrote movingly about the complicated and dangerous relational dynamics that she now helps women unravel. “Death by Love,” her multi-day series on domestic homicide in the wake of the Nicole Brown Simpson murder, was among the first and most in-depth explorations of its kind. The work was named a finalist in the inaugural Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, which recognizes exemplary journalism about the impact of violence, crime, disaster, and other traumatic events on individuals, families, and communities.
Pulled to do more than observe and record
Yet no matter how well-executed or distinguished, journalism only intensified her curiosity about people and herself. Dr. Roberts felt pulled to do more than observe and record. She wanted to dig to bedrock. The relationships she’d formed with people who had been through so much and her own experiences with trauma inspired her to pursue a career in psychotherapy with an emphasis on trauma and empathy research, including explorations into the psychological impact of relational abuse. Roberts left Portland for St. Louis and entered the doctorate program in clinical mental health counseling at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. She later served as executive director for Bravely, a St. Louis nonprofit residential housing program for women leaving the sex traffic.
Roberts’ academic study coincided with new examinations into the modern social epidemic of narcissistic abuse and its overlooked abuse, trauma, and betrayal. The internet abounded in opinions about narcissism, which weren’t helpful, and the little published science mainly looked at what made a pathologically narcissistic man.
But the subject fascinated Roberts and defined the complications for women in relationships with pathologically narcissistic men. She sought out the best teachers on the subject. She learned directly from Dr. Robert Hare how to administer his gold standard in testing for psychopathy and became a student of Dr. Robert Cloninger, one of the leading personality-science researchers, through his Anthropedia Institute. As she crafted the research for her dissertation, Roberts identified a significant chasm in the subject: Personality traits and early-life trauma histories of women who enter into relationships with these men. Her startling results broke ground in identifying these women. They scored four times higher for the presence of childhood trauma. Nearly three out of four participants met the clinical criteria for complex post-traumatic stress disorder or C-PTSD. But almost none had been diagnosed with this severe form, opening up new avenues for effective treatment.
A guide through the dark forest
With pioneering research, an empathic heart, and keen power of observation, Dr. Roberts has blazed a path for women to break the often-unconscious patterns that keep them stuck in trauma cycles. With compassion, she guides them out of the dark forest.
“I’ve been so blessed with children, animals, and all the good stuff,” she says. “People had always shown up and cared for me, even when the people supposed to love me couldn’t. Happiness and well-being are not so elusive. The things we can do to capture them are more simple than we think they will be.”
Dr. Roberts teaches psychopathology and diagnosis as adjunct faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She holds a master’s degree in education from UM-St. Louis and in journalism from Northwestern University. She is licensed to practice psychotherapy in Missouri and Oregon and received extensive training in wellness coaching by Anthropedia. She is among the first therapists licensed to provide legal psilocybin-assisted therapy in Oregon.
She serves as a contributor on the upcoming season of Oxygen network’s Mastermind of Murder, where she provides insight on dark personalities. Her research on empathy has been presented multiple times at the American Psychological Association.
She lives in Portland, Ore., where she enjoys the Pacific Northwest’s transcendent natural landscape and endless floral symphony. She enjoys writing, photography, Wednesday night dance parties in Mt. Tabor, and trying to keep her houseplants alive.
