Nassir Ghaemi
Academic psychiatrist and author
Nassir Ghaemi is an American psychiatrist and academic who focuses on depression and bipolar illness. He is the author of A First-Rate Madness.
1 summary 16 min of listening
Iranian Born 1966 in Tehran, Iran
About Nassir Ghaemi
Ghaemi was born in Tehran, Iran, and moved to the US at the age of five, growing up in McLean, Virginia. He studied history at George Mason University, then trained in medicine and worked at several Harvard-affiliated hospitals in the Boston area. He later earned a master's degree in philosophy from Tufts University and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has lectured on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has held faculty posts at Tufts University, George Washington University and other institutions. His clinical work and research center on depression and manic-depressive illness, and he has published more than 200 scientific articles. Ghaemi has written or edited several books, including A First-Rate Madness. He has also advocated for lithium therapy and has criticized the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) system of diagnosis.