A Life in Psychiatry: Looking Out, Looking in

When Dr. Paul Garfinkel started his career in psychiatry in the 1970s, psychoanalysis dominated the profession. Then the pendulum swung the other way. Psychoanalysis was discredited and drugs became the treatment of choice for mental illness. Throughout his career, Garfinkel has struggled to find a balance between these two poles, between compassion and human touch on one hand and the rigour of science and the prescribed drugs that have revolutionized psychiatry on the other. Though it was sometimes not popular, he held steadfast to his belief that medicines combined with psychotherapy are often better than either one alone.