When I was a young girl, my mother (a feminist before her time) plied me with books about famous women throughout the ages: Queen Esther, Marie Curie, and Helen Keller, to name a few. The woman who impressed me the most was not Helen Keller but her teacher, helper, and life companion, Anne Sullivan. I wanted to do what she did and be like her. And so, I believe, did the 21 remarkable women who, despite formidable odds, became the amazing psychiatrists presented in this book.

The authors represent diverse backgrounds and ethnicities—African American, Native American, Indian, Pakistani, and are from families