Richard M Berlin

Richard M. Berlin received his undergraduate and medical education at Northwestern University. After graduation, he completed residency training in psychiatry and a fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, a subspecialty focused on working alongside other medical colleagues to help patients with their physical and psychological recovery from severe medical disorders like cancer, heart disease, trauma, and strokes. An Instructor in Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical...See more

Richard M. Berlin received his undergraduate and medical education at Northwestern University. After graduation, he completed residency training in psychiatry and a fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, a subspecialty focused on working alongside other medical colleagues to help patients with their physical and psychological recovery from severe medical disorders like cancer, heart disease, trauma, and strokes. An Instructor in Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Berlin is the author of sixty scientific papers and has edited two books, Sleep Disorders in Psychiatric Practice and Poets on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment, and the Creative Process.In his 40's, Dr. Berlin began writing poetry. His first collection of poems, How JFK Killed My Father, won the Pearl Poetry Prize (2002) and was published by Pearl Editions. He used the prize money to establish a creative writing award for medical, nursing, and doctoral students at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. The Award is now in its twentieth year. His second collection of poetry, Secret Wounds, won the 2010 John Ciardi Prize in Poetry from the University of Missouri - Kansas City and was published by BkMk Press. Secret Wounds was also selected as the best general poetry book of 2011 by USA Book News. His third collection, Practice (2015), published by Brick Road Poetry Press, was a Finalist for the Brick Road Poetry Prize. Berlin's fourth poetry book, Freud On My Couch (2021), was published by Dos Madres Press. He is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Code Blue (Winner of the Poetry Society of South Carolina Chapbook Prize, 1999) and The Prophecy (Pudding House Press Chapbook Prize, 2010). Berlin's work has also received Finalist awards for the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize, and the Paris Review Prize. His poem, "The Fisherman," was commissioned by Mark Ludwig for the anthology, Liberation: Poems on Freedom by Internationally Renowned Poets.Berlin's poems have appeared in a broad array of anthologies, literary journals, and medical journals including his column "Poetry of the Times," which has featured one of his poems every month for the past twenty six years in Psychiatric Times, the most influential and widely read psychiatric publication in America, with over 40,000 print copies and over one million website visitors each month. Since 2020, he has been the host of a weekly Psychiatric Times video series, "Any Good Poem," in which he reads a poem of his choosing. He lives in a small, rural town in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. See less