Norman Doidge, MD

[Gary Freedman]

Norman Doidge, M.D., is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, and New York Times bestselling author. He is on the Research Faculty at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, and the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry. He has been described by Oliver Sacks, as an “eminent psychiatrist and researcher,” and has presented his research at the White House, in Washington. He uses his background as a psychoanalyst and researcher in the cutting-edge science of brain plasticity to help individuals and groups understand and transform themselves. In his practice, Dr. Doidge has worked for 19 years with CEOs, venture capitalists, and leaders of non-profit and government organizations. He can help business leaders and boards diagnose and deal with psychological issues and conflicts that cause tension and problems in business, and to perform psychological due diligence when making major business choices and appointments.

Dr. Doidge is an expert in Schizoid Personality Disorder and is the author of Diagnosing the English Patient: Schizoid Fantasies of Being Skinless and of Being Buried Alive. Dr. Doidge can be contacted at email address [e-mail]

His recent book The Brain That Changes Itself involves showing how we can change the structure and function of our brains using our thoughts. Dr. Doidge's book cites an earlier book written by Washington, DC psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, MD, titled Dreaming and Memory: A New Information-Processing Model.

Of Dr. Doidge's recent book, the New York Times has written: “The power of positive thinking finally gains scientific credibility. Mind-bending, miracle-working, reality-busting stuff, with implications...not only for individual patients with neurologic disease but for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history... Straddles the gap between science and self-help.” Oliver Sacks has called it, “a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.” The book is a New York Times Bestseller, a #1 bestseller in Canada, and was chosen by Amazon.com as one of the Top Ten Science books of 2007. The implications of this work are obvious for businesses. Investment strategist Kiril Sokoloff, founder of 13D Research, Inc. recently wrote in his private newsletter for investors, What I learned This Week, that “The Brain That Changes Itself...is without question the most important book of the year—and maybe the most important book we have ever read.”

At the University of Toronto, he studied classics, philosophy, and political science, graduating with high distinction, going on to earn his medical degree. He completed psychiatric and psychoanalytic training at Columbia University in New York, followed by two years as a Columbia-National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow, studying personality and self-deception. He was editor-in-chief of Books in Canada from 1995 to 1998 and, from 1998 to 2001, a columnist in Canada’s National Post, where he wrote, “On Human Nature.” His literary portraits of exceptional people at moments of transformation won four Canadian National Magazine Gold Awards, including the National Magazine Award President’s Medal, for the best article published in 2000.