“The wound will not heal unless given witness” — said over 700 years ago by Rumi, the Turkish poet. For over 40 years as a board-certified psychiatrist, I have tried to help people give witness to their wounds.
While being a doctor was part of my parents’ plan at the time of my birth, being a psychiatrist was not. But as I travelled through medical school, I began to realize that for most patients their mental health was almost always the determining factor in their recovery. Even though my father was perplexed by my decision to train in psychiatry, I have discovered that what I initially observed is in fact true very often.
My rich career has been very much a learning experience for me and my patients have been my best teachers. Add in the availability of excellent mentors, better medications, and the opportunity to work with medical students and residents; this has all brought me to a point where I consider myself to be a reasonable therapist – and I hope my abundance of curiosity will help you get to where, in your life journey, you want to go.
I especially relish my experiences with chronic mental illness, geriatric psychiatry, addictions, and forensic mental health.
