He has practiced medicine since 1965 and has taught medical humanities and ethics at the University of Texas at Austin since 2012. His work centers on medical education and the psychological effects of war and violence, particularly
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which he examined in both clinical and theoretical terms, with attention to its impact on behavior, identity, and ethical experience. He testified on these issues before the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs in 1981 and 1988, and co-edited
The Trauma of War: Stress and Recovery in Viet Nam Veterans (1985). His work on war and trauma developed during a period of expanding academic interest in the Vietnam War. He later served as director of research for the
Project on the Vietnam Generation, where he helped shape its research agenda and academic programs. The project, founded by Vietnam veteran
John Wheeler and based at the
National Museum of American History, examined the psychological and social impact of the Vietnam era on those who came of age during the period, which Sonnenberg described as a generation shaped by both conflict and its aftermath. In the 1980s, his work focused on psychiatry’s public role and on the psychological aspects of war, politics, and conflict. He was quoted in
The New York Times in 1982 as the director of the Washington School of Psychiatry, noting a decline in psychiatric training. He was later quoted in
Newsweek in 1988 as the head of the
American Psychoanalytic Association’s public affairs committee and a practicing analyst in Washington, D.C., in connection with professional outreach efforts in psychoanalysis. In 1985, he chaired a session on "The psychology of nuclear deterrence and national behavior" at a meeting of the
International Society of Political Psychology, alongside colleagues from the Carnegie Endowment’s Psychology of Deterrence Project, reflecting his work at the Washington School of Psychiatry. In 2017, the
National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Sonnenberg a grant to develop the undergraduate medical humanities program
Patients, Practitioners, and Cultures of Care (PPCC) at the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as chair of the program’s faculty panel. In 2024, a $2 million endowment from the Bratcher family expanded and renamed the program in honor of Joe W. Bratcher III. This endowment supported growth in undergraduate medical humanities education. He has appeared on the University of Texas podcast
This Is Democracy, hosted by
Jeremi Suri, discussing topics including mental health, public policy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. == Books ==