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I just want to say hello to everyone out there in cyberland. While I've had a website for over ten years (docdiller.com) but I've never blogged so I'm intrigued with the idea and honored that the editors of Psychology Today would have me join their elite list of contributors. Many of you probably have never even heard of my subspeciality, behavioral-developmental pediatrics. I evaluate and treat children (and their families) who struggle with behavior and performance problems at home and at school. I have a medical degree (so I can and do prescribe drugs). I finished a pediatrics residency (and am board certified in pediatrics). But I also completed a fellowship in behavioral-developmental pediatrics in the 1970s when there were only three such extant programs (now there are over 50). I did all my training at the University of California, San Francisco (I'm originally from New York and got my M.D. from Columbia). There are now about 1000 behavioral-developmental pediatricians in a board certified subspecialty of pediatrics compared to about 7000 child psychiatrists nationally. My training in mental health was oriented towards family systems rather than a psychoanalytic or stictly biological approach. So after my fellowship I received additional training from the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto. They were willing to train non-psychiatrist MDs in family therapy.
That said, most of you have probably never heard of Michael White, a very gifted therapist and innovator from Australia who promoted the "narrative" approach to psychotherapy. White, died suddenly in San Diego, while giving a seminar last Saturday of a heart attack. I believe he was only 62 years old. His insights and optimism will be sorely missed. I'm also, according to my patients and reviewers of my books an optimist apparently -- at least I appear to regularly give parents hope that things will work out okay for their kid. Anyway, this is enough for my first ever blog. I'm no longer a virgin.
