Nassir Ghaemi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (age 58–59) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | McLean High School |
| Alma mater | George Mason University (B.A.) Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University (M.D.) Tufts University (M.A.) Harvard School of Public Health (M.P.H.) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Psychiatrist |
| Institutions | Tufts Medical Center Harvard Medical School |
| Notable works | A First-Rate Madness |
| Website | http://www.nassirghaemi.com/ |
Nassir Ghaemi (born 1966) is an academic psychiatrist,author,and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He has written several books on mental illness and mood disorders and has published over 300 articles in the scientific literature. His interests lie primarily in the history and philosophy of psychiatry,psychiatric classification,and bipolar mood illness.
Among his other views,Ghaemi is a proponent of the concept of manic depressive illness in the original Kraepelinian sense;a proponent of lithium therapy,which he views as underutilized;and a critic of the DSM diagnostic system for its emphasis on reliability of diagnosis over scientific validity.
His writings consistently underscore the importance of psychopathology and theoretical pluralism to understand the complexities of mental life. He cites as his mentors Leston Havens,Elvin Semrad,and Karl Jaspers,among others. [1]
He immigrated to the United States at the age of 5 from Tehran,Iran,and attended McLean High School in McLean,Virginia. He received his B.A. from George Mason University in 1986 and later a medical degree from Medical College of Virginia. He then went on to receive an M.A. in philosophy from Tufts University in 2001,where he studied with the prominent philosopher Daniel Dennett,and an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004. [2] He completed his residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital,both affiliates of Harvard Medical School. [1]
He works and sees patients at Tufts Medical Center,where he is director of the Mood Disorder Program and the Psychopharmacology Consultation Clinic, [3] and also maintains a small private practice in Boston,Massachusetts. In 2025,he completed a term as President of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society.
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