Portraits

October 31, 2019

A psychiatrist attempts to stay positive while facing her parents' and loved ones' premature deaths-ever reminding us that hope springs eternal.

October 14, 2019

Dad excelled at his craft and was the natural choice for promotion to supervisor of the machine shop when the incumbent retired. But the company told him it just wouldn’t "look right" to have a person with only an 8th-grade education.

October 03, 2019

Those last years of the Communist regime were met with literal darkness, collective trauma, and lack of food and free speech. Yet the peoples’ wicked, clandestine sense of humor cut through the despair and resilience rose from the ashes.

October 02, 2019

Durkheim believed it was useless to prohibit newspapers from publishing stories of the ultimate act of self-harm. But he was wrong.

September 18, 2019

We humans need to believe. We tend to feel better, more grounded, and safer.

September 13, 2019

The world is a better place without a "tyrant of the day" taking over and cracking down with rigid rules. This and other life lessons after 40 years in psychiatry.

June 19, 2019

She was only 21. After "it" happened, I held a lecture on depression. I mentioned her at the end as a tribute. I longed for closure. More in this Portrait of a Psychiatrist.

June 12, 2019

Just recently, an adolescent patient refused to meet with me individually, saying, “People from your country kill us.” But we survived-as a country and as a family.

June 11, 2019

The tender moments that call for true empathy are often failed by the demands of the traditional physician-patient relationship.

May 29, 2019

Sometimes the work we are called to do is not what one traditionally expects. Be receptive to the “reason”-when the Sherpa knocks. More in this Portrait of a Psychiatrist.