Portraits

August 25, 2020

You are cordially invited to submit an article about a “what if” legal dilemma for a series about psychiatry and the law.

May 28, 2020

Thoughts on how we celebrate with our patients when they achieve a milestone in their work or convey a more finely tuned awareness of themselves.

April 02, 2020

Neighborhoods, tribes, gangs-each have their own culture. Unless you have been raised in one of them and are "known," you come as a stranger.

April 02, 2020

“I met Talia almost 20 years ago. It wasn’t the usual doctor-patient relationship formed in the setting of an outpatient clinic or general inpatient hospital.”

March 12, 2020

“In most respects, my career as a psychiatrist working in community mental health has been ordinary. What is most surprising to me is that, I have come to define myself as a critical psychiatrist.”

February 25, 2020

With the help of psychotherapy, something from the deep unconscious helped cure her depression, forge her character, and guide her to a sense of peace.

February 19, 2020

I would not want to simply map the stars; I would also want to gaze upon them and contemplate the mystery of it all. Such is the 15-minute med check versus the essence of psychiatry.

January 13, 2020

The mixed bag of emotions described here should be familiar to any clinician, especially to a psychiatrist.

December 31, 2019

Psychiatry can help us understand what layers of the onion exist that need to be peeled away, but the power to discard them once and for all resides within each and every one of us.

December 02, 2019

From homeless man with mental illness to the Royal College of Psychiatrists-the journey was not easy, but few things worthwhile are.

November 12, 2019

Psychiatry plays a central role in exploring and treating the depths of human experience captured by the word “soul.”

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.