John Stuart Ablon, Ph.D., is a staff psychologist in the Psychiatry Department at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he was asked to develop a program in psychodynamic psychotherapy research. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998. Ablon has been involved in psychotherapy research since 1992, when he worked at the Anna Freud Center, and has published and given presentations on such topics as ADHD, bipolar disorder, psychotherapy process, and different modalities of treatment. He is planning studies of the process and outcome of psychodynamic psychotherapy for panic disorder and depression and a study on psychotherapy as an alternative to pharmacotherapy for depression during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
Ron Burg, Ph.D., received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1998, where his dissertation examined the relationship between alliance and process in psychotherapy. He did his post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry of the Permanente Medical Group in Santa Clara, Calif. He is pursuing a second post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University in the Counseling and Psychological Services Division and works part-time at the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Center. Burg worked for five years with the Psychotherapy Research Group at the University of Michigan Psychological Clinic. His interests include psychoanalytic interpretations of literature and opera, Lacan's reading of Freud, and psychoanalytic theory of sexual orientation. His goals include supervising and teaching; continuing to conduct psychotherapy research; and completing a second dissertation at the University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought on the question of the scientific status of psychoanalysis.
Sandra DeJong, M.D., is beginning a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital in Boston. She completed a pediatric internship and adult psychiatry residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. Dejong has made her way to psychiatry by way of several careers. As an undergraduate at Harvard, she wrote short stories as well as psychologically oriented literary analysis. After college, she taught high school English. She received a master's degree in journalism in 1986 from Columbia University and subsequently won an award for her reporting on adolescent sexuality and education. DeJong is collaborating with two faculty members on a research project on neurological factors in aggressive behavior. In March 1999, she was elected member-in-training trustee-elect of the American Psychiatric Association's Board of Trustees. She is interested in pursuing research that explores the interface between neurobiology and psychodynamics.
Warachal Faison, M.D., is a PGY4 resident and chief resident at the University of North Carolina Psychiatry Residency Training Program in Chapel Hill, N.C. She is a 1998–2000 APA-Bristol Myers Squibb Fellow in public sector psychiatry and won a mini-fellowship for minority research training in psychiatry in 1998. She served as liaison between the Bristol Myers fellows and the American Association of Community Psychiatrists, and she currently serves on the AACP's board. She is also a member of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Elderly. Advocating for improved mental health resources for the elderly is one of her prime interests, and she plans to combat “ageist” attitudes among mental health professionals. Faison plans to continue her contributions to the fields of community and geriatric psychiatry.
David Goldfinger, Ph.D., is a post-doctoral fellow in clinical psychology, spending half his time at Two Brattle Center, an analytically oriented treatment center in Cambridge, Mass., and half at Boston College University Counseling Service. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1998. His dissertation research, which resulted in several publications, concerned traumatized combat veterans. Goldfinger was first captivated by the ideas of Freud by his study as an undergraduate with the Freud scholar Philip Rieff at the University of Pennsylvania. Following college, he pursued a successful career in music as a performer and songwriter. During his graduate training at the University of Michigan, Goldfinger presented twice to the American Psychological Association's Division 39 annual meeting, once as a member of a panel on psychodynamic supervision and in 1998 presenting his own clinical paper “Maternal Embodiment: Souvenirs from Adoption.”
Tomomi Inomata, M.D., Ph.D., completed her general psychiatry residency at the University of Michigan Medical School in June 1999 and has begun a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. from the Keio University School of Medicine in Japan. Inomata has been engaged in psychiatric research since 1989, including work in psychopharmacology and molecular genetics of schizophrenia. She has also directed research on the role of the spouse in depression. She has been the assistant instructor for a course in multiculturalism and medicine at the University of Michigan and was a member of the Diversity Development Committee at the U-Mich. Medical School. At the invitation of the Fellowship Committee, Inomata presented clinical material at a discussion group on cross-cultural issues in mental health training at the APsaA's Annual Meeting. She has a strong interest in the healing process of the human mind She hopes to conduct research in psychological trauma.
Xenia Johnson, M.D., is a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Cambridge Hospital Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She received her M.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland in 1995 and did her general psychiatry residency at the Medical University of South Carolina. She was awarded an APA/Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Fellowship in 1997 and a mini-fellowship in 1996 from the Program for Minority Research Training in Psychiatry. She presented a paper on eating disorders in African Americans at the national meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1996. Interested in a multicultural perspective, Johnson has embarked on a funded research project of her own design in which she is compiling a set of videotapes of clinical interviews of individuals from the Hispanic, Haitian, Portuguese, Asian, African-American, and Cape Verdean communities. She plans to continue as a psychiatric teacher and researcher.
Joni Mihura, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toledo in Ohio, where she teaches psychodynamic theory and technique and supervises trainees. She received her Ph.D. in 1995 from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Her psychology internship was at Harvard Medical
School/Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and her post-doctoral fellowship was at West-wood Lodge Hospital in Massachusetts. She has several publications and manuscripts in progress on the MMPI and Rorschach. Other current research interests include treatment of bulimia nervosa patients and psychosocial stressors in Dakota Indians with diabetes. As a psychology educator, Mihura is intent on introducing her undergraduate and graduate students to psychodynamic principles and dispelling some of the negative popular views about psychoanalysis. She has directed her students in a project to study the evolution of negative attitudes toward psychoanalysis in undergraduate psychology textbooks and courses.
Martha Pierce, M.A., is completing her Ph.D. work at the Smith College School of Social Work and is employed as a Senior Hospital Psychotherapist at the New York Presbyterian Hospital–Westchester, Child and Adolescent Division. Past employment has included positions as program coordinator at the Adolescent Partial Hospital Program at the Yale Psychiatric Institute and section head for group psychotherapy at a residential hospital. Pierce was trained in family therapy at the Family Institute of Northwestern University. In 1997, she was a guest researcher with the Attachment Team headed by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target at the Anna Freud Center. Her dissertation research concerns countertransference in clinicians' work with suicidal adolescents. Pierce is particularly interested in the negative effects of the managed care environment on mental health training. As a teacher, she hopes to develop courses that include psychoanalytic concepts for clinicians in early stages of their training.
Joshua Pretsky, M.D., completed his general psychiatry residency at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute in June 1999 and is currently a first-year fellow in consultation-liaison psychiatry at the West Los Angeles V.A. Medical Center. His interest in psychoanalysis can be traced back to his undergraduate studies in philosophy and European intellectual history. Throughout his education, Pretsky immersed himself in organizational activity and leadership out of his personal conviction about the importance of community. His interests include Eastern religions, psychotherapy process and outcome, and the interface between psychoanalysis and neurobiology. He is engaged in psychotherapy research designed to quantify intra-psychic change as it occurs in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Pretsky is interested in applying his psychoanalytic interests to his work in consultation-liaison psychiatry, particularly in cardiology and transplant surgery. He wishes to help maintain the connection between psychoanalysis and the biomedical sciences as an academic psychiatrist.
Charles Rainey, M.D., J.D., is a PGY6 fellow in forensic psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry in Milwaukee, where he also did his general psychiatry residency. Prior to his psychiatric career, he practiced as an attorney and pursued graduate training in electrical engineering, with a special interest in computers. He received his M.D. from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He served as the administrative chief resident for informatics for the department and chief resident of the Division of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at Columbia Hospital Psychotherapy Center. He has conducted research into addictive disorders and schizophrenia using functional MRI. Rainey has vigorously pursued leadership opportunities in organized medicine and is currently chair of the Resident and Fellow Section of the American Medical Association. He expresses a keen interest in health care policy issues and medical education issues and has helped draft resolutions for the AMA and his state medical society. Rainey's goal is to develop a new forensic evaluation clinic within his department. He is obtaining a master's degree in medical ethics through the Center for Bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, M.S.W., anticipates receiving her Ph.D. from the Smith College School for Social Work in 2001. Her research interests for both her master's and Ph.D. dissertations concern parenting among Puerto Ricans living in the continental United States. She is a clinical instructor of social work at the Yale University Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., where she coordinates services for an intensive family preservation program, consults to a day care center, and provides clinical assessment serivces in-home and at a school-based clinic. She works collaboratively with law enforcement officials in New Havens Child Development Community Policing Project, which provides immediate on-site crisis intervention to crime victims. She believes that psychoanalytic theory is necessary to best understand the development and needs of children who have suffered the devastating effects of poverty. Rodriguez is an adjunct faculty member at Fordham University in its social work program. She is very interested in the issue of bicultural identity and hopes to advance the psychoanalytic understanding of cultural identity, especially among Hispanics.
Vernon Rosario, M.D., Ph.D. is currently a PGY3 resident at the University of California-Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he is on the research track. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993 in the history of science. His dissertation work led to a recently published book, The Erotic Imagination: French Histories of Perversity, which assesses Freud's intellectual debt to earlier French theories of erotic perversion. Rosario is also a coauthor of the forthcoming book Gay and Lesbian Life in the U.S. At UCLA, he is an instructor in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program. He was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History at UCLA during the 1995–96 academic year. Rosario, who has a bachelor of science degree in biomedical engineering, spent two years as a teaching fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, where he taught neurosciences and physiology.
Jennifer Stevens, Ph.D., received her doctorate in psychology this year from the University of Michigan and is now a post-doctoral fellow at the Austen Riggs Center in Stock-bridge, Mass. She has extensive research experience working with other investigators in psychology, first at Harvard, where she received a Ed.M. degree in the education/human development, and subsequently at Michigan, where she taught a course on emotion and music. Her dissertation studies concerned the therapeutic alliance, and her master's thesis addressed the experiences of graduate students from working-class backgrounds. She has a longstanding interest in reading and writing poetry, which particularly intrigues her as a vehicle for capturing the meaning of experiences that are better captured through the extra-linguistic aspects of language.
Susan Swick, M.D., is a PGY4 resident at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to her medical career, she was involved in the performing arts as a singer, actor, theatrical producer, and director. Assuming leadership positions throughout her academic and post-college years, she founded and ran an independent theater company in the year after college. During medical school at Columbia, Swick became president of Columbia's chapter of the American Medical Women's Association, organizing scientific and political panels and creating two mentoring programs, one for female medical students and one for young women interested in careers in science. Thus began her interest in public health, particularly epidemiology and health law, which is culminating in a master's degree in public health this year.