Robert Kertzner M.D.

About

Robert Kertzner, M.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. As a psychotherapist and psychiatrist, researcher, and educator, he has authored numerous articles and chapters on adult development, human sexuality and mental health, LGBT mental health, HIV mental health, and psycho-immunology. In addition to academic journals, he has contributed to the Huffington Post, PsychiatryAdvisor, and the UCSF publication Focus. He is past Training Director of an NIMH-funded postdoctoral training grant in HIV Behavioral Sciences research. Current activities include peer counseling with Emergency Room physicians during the Covid pandemic, human sexuality teaching and psychotherapy supervision with psychiatry residents, mentorship of colleagues and students, and clinical practice based in New York City.

Recent Posts

Conversations With Patients Who Have Died

Personal Perspective: The experience of losing psychotherapy patients to medical illness can prompt imagined conversations to honor and remember their lives.

How to Receive Gifts as a Psychotherapist

A Personal Perspective: A psychotherapist reflects on gifts accepted, declined, and belatedly appreciated, in one case after four decades.

Grief Comes Home to the Psychotherapist

A Personal Perspective: Dying to tell you what I learned as a bereaved psychotherapist.

Alternative Facts in the Psychotherapy Office

Psychotherapy during a time of alternative facts.

Returning to the Office in the Midst of the COVID Pandemic

A return to my office led to some unexpected realizations about what is essential and pleasurable about the practice of psychotherapy.